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MORAL EVIL 



ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN 



Br L. B. WILKES. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J. H. GAEKISON. 



"The Wages of Sin is Death."— ROM. 6:23. 



St. Louis: 
CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

1892. 






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,vV 






CONTENTS. 



Peeface 5 

Introduction 13 

GENERAL SURVEY. 



The Problem Outlined 

The Predestinarian Solution 



19 
34 



MORAL EVIL— ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. 



CHAP 
I. 


Definition 56 


II. 


Author of Moral Evil ... 72 


III. 


Will Moral Evil Have an End? . 89 


IV. 


Do THE Holy Scriptures Teach that 




Moral Evil Shall End? . . 103 


V. 


Post MortexM Gospel . . . 139 


VI. 


Spirits in Prison .... 154 


VII. 


The Will as a Factor . . . 174 


VIII. 


Tendencies 183 


IX. 


Conclusion 192 

(3) 



PREFACE. 



Everything else being equal, that man is 
strongest for virtue and against vice who is 
most widely learned. 

There are some truths that some persons 
ought not to know. One who is walking a 
wire a hundred feet from the ground is, no 
doubt, in danger of falling, but it is better, for 
the time, that he should not know it. There 
are many cases that will readily occur to the 
mind of the reader in which ''ignorance is 
bliss." Nevertheless, our proposition, that he 
is surest for virtue and against vice who is 
best informed, other things being equal, is 
true. 

Light, physical, intellectual and spiritual, 
makes for strength and life. Darkness is, in 
the respects mentioned, a portent of weakness 
and of death. 

When I speak of wide learning and broad 

culture I do not mean to include certain 

(5) 



PBEFACE. 



branches of learning to the exclusion or neg- 
lect of any others. All truth is one, and 
truth on all subjects is one. All truth is light, 
and all light is strength and life. 

As no one man can know all things, or, as 
no man is God ; and, as some certain learning 
is better adapted to certain persons than other 
kinds of learning would be, it is not best that 
any one should attempt to study everything. 
"Wise, therefore, is he who selects for himself 
that course of study which best equips him for 
the work which he proposes to do. It is, how- 
ever, still true that he who knows most is, as a 
rule, best qualified for either virtue or vice. 

Man is one and yet he is many. He is a 
complex unit. He is strongest for virtue and 
against vice when he is educated on all of his 
sides, or, in respect to every part of his com- 
plex being. 

A merely physical education, though of great 
importance to any man in whatever sphere or 
department of work he may be, develops the 
brute nature that is in him; only this, nothing 
more. That is, it makes out of him all the 



FEE FACE. 



brute that there is in him. This, for him, as a 
hrute^ would be a good and correct thing to 
do. Still the man himself and the society in 
which he lives are both the worse for his brute 
education with its consequents. He is a slug- 
ger. 

Of course, one m.ay 6e, by proper training, 
well developed physically, and still be a refined, 
cultured gentleman. But this is possible only 
where the education does not stop with mere 
physical culture. The wrong and the resulting 
evil, in the case supposed, is not in the fact of 
fine physical development, but in the lack of 
something more. This, it was well to have 
done, but that should not have been left un- 
done. ''A little learning is a dangerous thing," 
is not a late untested discovery. 

The steam engine had better not have the 
capacity of 2,000 horses than, having it, not to 
be under mental and moral control, or guid- 
ance. So, if one, called a man, is to be prac- 
tically a brute, it were better that he should not 
be a mighty brute. 

If one is to be intellectual, but not moral or 



8 PREFACE, 



spiritual, the less intellectual learning and cul- 
ture he has the better. The more intellectual 
culture a man has the better, provided the in- 
tellect and its culture are thoroughly sanctified 
to high moral and spiritual ends. But where 
such cultured intellect is not so sanctified, the 
less it is educated the better. 

The people of these United States are bent 
upon a desperate experiment in giving intellec- 
tual education, often quite extensive, to all the 
children of the land without stopping to ask 
what they intend to do with it. It is not, by 
any means, yet shown that, in educating the 
intellects of our children as we are doing, and 
neglecting and more than neglecting their 
moral and spiritual natures, we are not sowing 
the seeds of a most destructive cyclone of an- 
archy in the end, and the end not far in the 
future. 

Is it said : The government must not teach 
morals nor religion? Whatever maybe true on 
this point, let the question be raised* On 
what ground does the government feel it a duty 
to educate the children of the country at all? 



FEE FACE, 9 



Is education, as we have it, a function, proper, 
of our government? If the answer be no, 
then the whole question is settled. But if the 
answer should be yes, then I insist that the 
government's curriculum of study shall be in 
harmony with the natures of those whom it 
undertakes to educate. If what is to be edu- 
cated is physical only, then let the education 
be adapted to that nature. If it be physical and 
intellectual, let the education be both, also; 
and let it be the latter especially, as it is, mani- 
festly, the more important of the two. But, if 
it be physical, intellectual and moral ^ as it is, 
then let the education be such as is adapted to, 
or is inclusive of, the whole unit, the whole 
complex man. Surely, the most important 
part of the government's pupil ought not to be 
neglected. Indeed, this most important, this 
highest nature in the pupil, cannot,, with rea- 
son, or with safety to society, be neglected 
long. 

Whenever the public conscience has come to 
rest easy under a regime that dismantles man 
of that which especially characterizes him as 



10 PBEFACE. 



man, and therefore reduces him to a mere 
wreck of the man he was intended to be, the 
end of all desirable, enjoyable civil society is 
not far away. It surely would be a diffi- 
cult thing to prove that a government owes the 
child the education of its lower natures, but 
not its highest. 

The track of such an attempt at argument 
as is here contemplated, is as devious as that of 
a serpent. 

Is it said that the government educates the 
child on the plea of self -protection? that the 
child is of more service to society, and is less 
dangerous, when educated than when not edu- 
cated? But, is the conclusion herein true? 
An educated knave is more dangerous than 
one who is not. Nor is it true that an educa- 
tion that is merely physical and intellectual has 
any tendency to make people moral or relig- 
ious. God has decreed that everything shall 
bring forth after its kind. A strictly physical 
or intellectual education may make one a phy- 
sical or an intellectual giant, but it makes him 
this only. Morally, he is the same that he 



PBEFACE. 11 



was; and so he must remain until he is in- 
structed in moral things. It is not reason nor 
is it yet demonstrated to be a fact that an edu- 
cated people, where the moral nature is un- 
taught, undeveloped, are apter to be harmless 
and useful than those who are not. 

But my purpose here and now is, only, to 
preface the following treatise on " Moral 
Evil." 

If the moral nature of man be his highest 
endowment, as I suppose it is, then surely the 
impulse that leads one to investigate the very 
difficult subject of moral evil is a good one. 
Some of the questions which I have attempted 
to discuss are, confessedly, very difficult. The 
hope of reaching conclusions on all of them, 
which shall be satisfactory to every one, is not 
entertained. Much of the territory attempted 
to be explored lies in very high mental and 
moral latitudes, and some of it borders close 
upon the limits of intellectual and spiritual 
thinking. 

There are, however, many respects in which 
the subject of Moral Evil may be treated intel- 



12 FEE FACE, 



ligibly and profitably, and it is confidently 
hoped that a creditable proportion of the fol- 
lowing investigations will be allowed to belong 
to this class. 

If the reader should now and then find state- 
ments made, arguments attempted or conclu- 
sions supposed to have been reached which he 
cannot accept, or that he must reject, it may, 
nevertheless, be that our effort shall provoke a 
re-examination and a better understanding of 
the subjects treated, or of some of them, than 
was had before. In that case our labor is not 
wholly lost. 

The scope of our investigations may be in- 
ferred, to some extent, from the following 
analysis : 

1. What is, and What is the Origin of, 
Moral Evil? 

2. Who is the Author of Moral Evil? 

3. Will Moral Evil Have an End? 

L. B. WILKES. 
Stockton, Cal., May 4, 1892. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Whenever an earnest, thoughtful mind con- 
fronts squarely any one of the great problems of 
life, and grapples with it honestly and fearless- 
ly, he challenges the attention of all sober 
minds. The problem herein discussed is one 
that has claimed the attention of the ablest men 
of all time. It has thrown its dark shadow of 
mystery across the lives of unnumbered mil- 
lions of rational souls, from the crime of Cain 
to the present hour. Its complete and satis- 
factory solution has baffled the wisdom of phi- 
losopher and theologian, rationalist and mystic. 
And this, for the reason suggested by the 
author of this volume, that the lofty theme 
partakes of the infinite, and we are finite. It 
cannot be too constantly borne in mind by 
those who are troubled over unsolved prob- 
lems, that many of these lie beyond the reach 
of human reason, at least in our present state. 
" We know in part and we prophesy in part." 

Because of this limitation of our knowledge, 
(13) 



14 INTB OB UC TIOX. 

^' we walk by faith, not by sight." Let us be 
content to leave some of the mysteries of life 
for the light of eternity to dissipate, when 
''that which is perfect is come." 

Nevertheless, we do well to grapple earnestly 
and manfully with the great problems in- 
volved in our existence and destiny, and to seek, 
as far as in us lies, to understand them, and to 
know their meaning. It is God, Himself, who 
has planted this impulse within us — this inborn 
desire to push back the borders of the un- 
known, and to attain to wider views of truth. 
It is only when the eager desire to compass 
and classify all knowledge leads the soul to 
discard as truth what it cannot verify or com- 
prehend, thus denying to faith its legitimate 
province, that this natural impulse degenerates 
into a boastful sciolism. The reverent spirit 
manifested by the author of this volume, as he 
cautiously approaches his conclusions along the 
lines of Scripture and logic, well befits so grave 
a theme, and is worthy of commendation. The 
reader may not be able to accept all his inter- 
pretations or conclusions, but he cannot but 
feel that the author himself has not reached 
them without an honest, pains-taking effort to 
know the truth. Nor do we see how those 
who accept his premises — the supreme author- 



INTBODUCTION, 15 

ity of the Scriptures on this and all other 
moral problems — can avoid reaching the same 
conclusions in the cardinal and essential fea- 
tures of the argument. In locating sin in the 
human will, that is in the choice of evil, in 
finding the origin of sin in the abuse of moral 
freedom, in rejecting the Predestinarian 
theory as a solution of the problem, in makiilg 
the cessation of punishment depend on repent- 
ance, in the future state, in pointing out the 
danger of moral fixedness in evil so that re- 
pentance is not possible, and in emphasizing 
the will as the decisive factor in this problem of 
the termination of evil, the author seems to us 
to rest upon the impregnable basis of truth as 
taught in the Scriptures and corroborated by 
the highest reason. The recognition of the 
human will in its relation to the divine will, 
may be said to be a distinguishing characteris- 
tic of this work. It is this feature, more than 
any other, that gives the present volume a de- 
cided advantage over many other treatises on 
this subject. 

It will no doubt be felt by some that the 
author's conclusion leaves a very dark picture 
of human destiny before the mind, so far as 
those dying impenitent are concerned. This 
is true, but the author's object, it is evident, 



16 INTBODUCTION, 

was not to draw a pleasing picture of the des- 
tiny of the unsaved, but to present the teach- 
ing of God's word upon the subject. The dis- 
cussion is mainly concerned with those who 
in this life reject the gospel and harden their 
hearts to all its tender pleadings. That those 
who have never heard the gospel will not be 
judged by it, is the author's reasonable conclu- 
sion. There is one phase of the problem of 
moral evil which the author does not treat, at 
least directly. It is the theory advanced in 
what has come to be known as the New Theol- 
ogy. This theory claims that since Christ, as 
the revelation of the Father, is the highest and 
strongest appeal which God can make to a 
human soul, and since millions die without ever 
having heard of Christ, and therefore without 
having been appealed to by the highest motive 
to virtue, these, too, must have Christ offered 
to them before their destiny can be decisively 
fixed. It is not held that all these will certain- 
ly accept Christ, but it is argued that God could 
not in justice, and therefore would not con- 
demn to punishment, or leave in an unsaved 
state, those who might be won by the offer of 
Christ; and that until Divine Love has put 
forth its highest effort to win a soul to God, 
its destiny is not determined. 



INTBODUCTION, 17 

This, in brief, is the contention of that new 
school of thought which has risen within the 
Old Predestinarian fold. That it is an advance 
on the old theory of consignment to everlasting 
punishment because of an eternal decree which 
has no reference to the moral condition of those 
thus consigned, the writer at least will not 
deny. Moreover, not a few devout souls take 
refuge in this view in the presence of the dark 
problem of the destiny of by far the larger 
part of our race who leave this world without 
ever having heard of the love ot God as re- 
vealed in Christ. While admitting the paucity 
of direct Scripture teaching in support of this 
theory, may we not hold it as one of the open 
questions to be decided, if at all, in the light of 
that wider knowledge of God's will and way 
which is sure to come in the future? May we 
not well hesitate to dogmatize, with too great 
certainty, on a question concerning which the 
Bible, if not silent, speaks in language of 
doubtful import? 

But having said this, I wish to express my 
appreciation of the able and scholarly argu- 
ment of the distinguished author whose close 
and clear thinking, and whose faithful adher- 
ence to the inspired word make this work 
worthy of the careful examination of the most 



18 mTBODUGTION', 

thoughtful minds. If his interpretation of a 
passage or two differs somewhat from my own, 
this fact does not prevent my cordial approval 
of the general conclusions he has reached. I 
wish I could see scriptural ground for hope 
that moral evil will have an end. This would 
seem to be an ideal consummation of Christ's 
mission. But, like the author, looking all the 
facts full in the face, including Scriptural de- 
clarations and human nature as we see it, we 
confess our inability to find the ground for 
such a hope. But we need not despair, nor 
allow our hearts to be dismayed. We may 
comfort ourselves with the assurance that 
'^God is love,'' and that "the Lord of the 
whole earth will do right." 

J. H. Garrison. . 
Rose Hill, St Louis, Sept. 15, 1892. 



GENERAL SURVEY. 



THE PROBLEM, OUTLINED. 

We are in a world of change. Our 
fathers are gone and we are going. 
Here we have no abiding place, no con- 
tinuing city. We know these things 
are so, whatsoever else may or may not 
be. 

Men pass into view, take their places 
upon the stage, play a noble or ignoble 
part, and are gone, soon gone, never to 
come back. So we see things. 

One leaves the stage for about every 
second of time, or, in round numbers, 
nearly or quite one hundred thousand 
every day. This is a terrible truth, 
recognized and accepted as such by 
every one who is at the trouble of mak- 

(19) 



20 MOBAL EVIL. 



ing a very simple calculation. "Where 
do they go? What of them whea 
gone ? 

' Our thought, in its search for them^ 
traverses the pathless skies, pauses at 
bright Orion, Aldebaran or Sirius^ 
muses at the Pleiades, or^ from the 
Milky Way, pierces the fathomless up- 
per deep in search of our dead. But in 
answer to our cry of bereavement we 
receive back only the echo of our bit- 
ter complaint. No information or ex- 
planation is given us, or can be, aside 
from Divine revelation. All the sciences^ 
arts and histories of the world may be 
examined rigidly, may be questioned 
severely, as they have been, but no 
light is obtained. These sources of in- 
formation, so richly freighted with 
blessings of a thousand kinds, for us, 
on this subject do not speak. Their 
deliverances are of the earth earthy; 
they are but dust or ashes. They 
know nothing, and, hence, can say noth- 



MOBAL EVIL, 21 



ing on the high themes of human origin 
and destiny. The propositions concern- 
ing man's origin and destiny are not 
from the earth; for, man of himself 
knows nothing of origins or destinies. 
Therefore, as the proposition must be 
from above, the proof must be from 
heaven also, must be homogeneous with 
the proposition to be proved. N^o one 
knows the Father save the Soin" and he 
to whom the Soisr shall reveal him. So, 
no one knows the future, or can know 
it, or the condition of the dead in the 
future state, except him to whom the 
Son shall reveal them. 

In this life we find ourselves sur- 
rounded bv sin, and it is in all of us. 
The bitter effects are seen everywhere. 
"Was it designed by the Maker that it 
should be so ? Did '' our Father who 
is in Heaven " intend that his rational 
creature, — man — whom he made in his 
own image, should sin and, therefore, 
suffer ? 



22 MOBAL EVIL. 



1. To suppose that God had no end 
in view in man's creation, is to suppose 
that he worked as no intelligent maa 
ever works. This supposition is ab- 
surd. 

2. To suppose that he intended 
man's unhappiness, or that human suf- 
fering was the end had in view iu 
man's creation, is to reckon God to be 
worse, perhaps, than the very worst man. 
that has ever lived. This hypothesis is. 
monstrous and inadmissible. I think it 
will not be denied that God designed. 
man's happiness when he created him, 
whatever else he may have intended. 

If man's happiness was intended, it 
must be, for the same reason, that he 
was to \iQ perfectly happy. But he is^ 
not so. He hungers, thirsts, mourns^ 
weeps, wails, sickens and dies. He 
yearns for what he has not, and yet feels^ 
that he ought to have, and, but for 
something in the way, would have. This 
unrest is alv/ays and everywhere pres- 



MOBAL EVIL. 23 



ent, with every one. Why is this ? An 
enemy hath done this. Is there no 
means of removing this impediment? no 
cure for this moral malady ? 

How sin could be in the world and be 
the cause of so dire consequences as 
we see, and this fact be reconciled with 
our conceptions of God and man, has 
long been a problem. '' Is not God 
omnipotent ? Can he not, then, do what- 
ever he may choose to do, or wish to see 
done ?-' These questions being answered 
in the affirmative, if sin is, it follows 
that it is by the will of God. But if 
this be so, then God wills the existence 
of sin, or, being unwilling that it should 
be, he was not able to prevent it, and 
he is not now able to remove it. It is 
at least true that it was not prevented, 
nor has it been removed. It is here. 

Must we, then, conclude that God is 
not omnipotent? that he is lacking in 
respect to one of his attributes essen- 
tial to the character, and therefore, to 



24 MOBAL EVIL, 



the existence of God ? If we should so 
conclude, it would follow that there is 
no such thing as sin ; for sin is the vio- 
lation of the law or will of God. But, 
if there be no God, there can be no law 
of God to violate, and hence no sin. 

"When omnipotence is affirmed of 
God, it is meant, or should be under- 
stood to mean, only that there is noth- 
ing of a pur ely pity sical cTtaracter that 
he has not the power to do ; this and 
nothing more is meant. 

The question of preventing or remov- 
ing sin is, however, not one of the exer- 
tion of physical power. Hence God's 
omnipotence has nothing to do with the 
question of the original or continued 
existence of sin. 

It may be asked, Could not God have 
made man so that he could not have 
sinned? '^ Could he not have done a 
better job ?'' I suppose no one but an 
infidel could ask such a question as 
this. It is blasphemy. Its animus 



MOBAL EVIL, 25 



and purport are to impugn the character 
of God, else it has none. God could 
not have made man different from 
what he did make him. If he had 
made him so he could not have sinned, 
he would not have been mart. If one' 
is not capable of sinning, neither is he 
capable of being righteous, and hence 
he neither is nor can be fit for heaven 
or hell. The fact is, God did create 
many beings not capable of sinning, 
and we see the fact before us that they 
are not men. 

3. But, if God is able to prevent or 
to remove sin at his pleasure, and it is 
not prevented nor banished from the 
earth, what is the conclusion ? This, I 
suppose : God wills that sin shall be ; 
he wishes it to be and, of course, wills 
all of its necessary consequences, also. 
If this be so, then, as before, sin is not 
possible. For, in that case, if one 
should perpetrate what we call a sin, it 
would be no violation of the will of 



26 MOBAL EVIL, 



God, and therefore not a sin. Thera 
could be no such thing as righteous- 
ness, in the religious sense, either ; for 
righteousness is the doing of right, ac- 
cording to the will of God. But if the 
will of God be that man must or may 
sin, then there is no law of righteous- 
ness to violate ; there is, therefore, no 
sin in such case. Moreover, it would 
be a very strange proceeding for a mau 
to bow down in prayer to a being 
whom he believes is the author of all 
his sorrows, and give him thanks ; to 
praise and adore him for all his good- 
ness to the children of men ! 

4. It has been said that if God is 
really good, and foresaw that men, if 
created, would suffer, etc., he ought not 
to have made them, and that he would 
not. With the case as it appeared be- 
fore the objector, perhaps his conclu- 
sion is not very objectionable. But we 
ought never to attempt to draw conclu- 
sions from premises unless we under- 



MOBAL EVIL, 27 



stand them. What all the premises 
before God were, when he was consid- 
ering the question of creating man, it 
is highly probable we do not fully un- 
derstand. What all the physical, 
moral and spiritual necessities in God's 
universe were, on which the question 
of the creation or non- creation of maa 
would have important bearings, we may 
not, do not, fully know. Hence such 
judgments as the one above referred to 
are rash and impious to the last degree. 
But God knows the end from the be- 
ginning. The facts and bearings of all 
the realities and necessities in the uni- 
verses of God were before him, and he 
decided, in view of them all, to create 
man. Though we may not know all 
his reasons for what he did, we know 
the fact. He says that we were made 
in his image, which, I venture to say, in- 
cludes the fact of our free moral agen- 
cy, and excludes, ex necessitate reiy 
the idea of moral necessity. If this be 



28 MOBAL EVIL. 



not SO, it seems to me that the image 
in which we were made is a rather poor 
one. 

I believe there have been, and it may 
be now are, a few theologians of some 
distinction who have held that sin is a 
good thing, that God designed its ex- 
istence, and that when it has served its 
purpose God will put an end to it. 
These persons hold that Adam's sin 
was intended as, and that it was, a 
blessing to him and to his posterity. 
If the Bible be the Word of God and 
true, this hypothesis is false. God not 
only forbade the sin in question, but 
he forbade it with great emphasis. 

If he forbade the deed, and yet in- 
tended that Adam should perform it, 
the logical conclusion would be hard 
on the character of the Author of all 
mercies. If he only pretended to for- 
bid it, whereas he intended Adam 
should eat of the forbidden fruit, the 
case is not made any better. In view 



MOBAL EVIL. 29 



of these and other reasons which it is 
not necessary to recite, I feel safe in 
saying that sin is in the world. But 
Tiow came it here ? 

5. Did Grod design it to be here ? I 
answer, no. (a) I suppose that he did 
not, from the fact that he forbade it. 
To say that he designed its existence 
in the world, is to say that his words 
in which he forbids sin may rightly 
contradict his will, which was in his 
design, that sin should be. This is im- 
possible. If God does not design to 
have done what he says man must or 
must not do, then he does what Paul 
says God cannot do, viz. : "It is impos- 
sible for God to lie." (b) But sup- 
pose God designed that man should 
sin, what follows ? This : Man did 
not, does not, cannot sin while doing 
the will of God. As God's design is 
his will, and as sin is the violation of 
the will of God, so therefore, in no 
case, where a man does wliat or as 



so MOBAL EVIL, 



God designed that he should do, does 
he sin. If it be said that Adam, when 
he ate the forbidden fruit, did what 
God expressly told him not to do, and 
so he sinned, it should be replied that 
though God did say that man must not 
eat of the forbidden fruit, yet in fact he 
willed that he should eat of it ; and as 
sin consists in violating the will^ and 
not in violating the word of God in 
which his will is not, if that could be, 
so, when man ate of the fruit in ques- 
tion, he did not sin. I would, of 
course, allow that where one violates 
the will of God he sins. 

The supposition that God designed 
that sin should be in the world, we have 
seen, directly contradicts the expressed 
word of God. If that may be true of 
any one statement of God in the Bible, 
it may be true of all of them, for aught 
we know or can know, so far as I can 
see. It follows from this, that we have 
no means of knowing the loill of God, 



MOBAL EVIL. 31 



on any subject. Thus, all distinctions 
"between sin and righteousness are 
^one, and we are left as though we had 
no Bible, " without God and without 
hope in the world." Indeed, with this 
Tiew accepted, it is not apparent that 
either sin or righteousness is a possi- 
Ibility on the part of man. If there be 
sin at all, it must be, on oar present 
theory, that God is himself its author. 
This is, of course, impossible. 

6. Did God permit sin to come into 
the world? I think he did not. It 
ought not to be said that one permits 
what he could not prevent. Is it said 
that God could have prevented sin? 
The fact that he did not prevent sin is 
proof, entirely satisfactory, that he 
could not do so. Is one shocked at 
this statement which, to him, seems to 
limit the power of God? Where no 
distinction is made between the phys- 
ical and the moral power of God, the 
statement that God could not have pre- 



32 MOBAL EVIL. 



vented the birth and continued exist- 
ence of sin in the world appears, no 
doubt, blasphemous. But does the ob- 
jector better the case when he claims 
that God created, with his own hand, a 
pure, innocent man in his own image, 
and then stood by and permitted sin to 
enter in and ruin his child, whereas he 
could have easily prevented the calam- 
ity, but would not do so ? 

There are many things that God can- 
not do. In so saying I put no limita- 
tions upon God ; I do not narrow the 
grounds upon which man's profound 
and infinite obligation and moral abil- 
ity to worship God rest. The very re- 
verse of this is the truth. To say that 
God cannot deny himself; to say that 
he '' cannot lie," steal or murder is no 
defamation, but, rather, the highest 
possible commendation of his charac- 
ter. 

7. Is it said, God could have de- 
clined to create man, and thus have pre- 



MOBAL EVIL. 33 



vented sin ? It is not certain that sin 
would not have been, though man had 
not been created. It might possibly 
have been, though man had never been. 
Indeed, it did exist before the cre- 
ation of man. But how does the 
querist know that God could have de- 
clined to create man? The probabili- 
ties are, he could not have declined the 
said creation. At least, he did make 
man. This we know. That he had a 
reason for the deed which outweighed 
all reasons to the contrary is of course 
true. Therefore Grod could not have 
declined to create man and thus pre- 
vent the existence of moral evil among 
men. This point is more fully dis- 
cussed elsewhere. 
3 



THEPREDESTINARIAN SOLUTION'. 

There is a theory that says man 
was predestined to every certain act of 
his life ; that, without being consulted 
and with no reference to faith or good 
works in him he was, before the world 
was made, destined to life or death. 
This, if I mistake not, is a fair state- 
ment of the case. 

On this point I quote a few passages 
from what is, perhaps, as good an 
authority as any : '^ God from all 
eternity did by the most wise and holy 
counsel of his own will, freely and un- 
changeably ordain whatsoever comes 
to pass ; yet so as thereby neither is 
God the author of sin ; nor is violence 
offered to the will of the creatures, nor 
is the liberty or contingency of second 
causes taken away, but rather estab- 
lished." Again : " By the decree of 

(34) 



MOBAL EVIL. 35 



God, for the manifestation of his glory, 
some men and angels are predestinated 
unto everlasting life, and others fore- 
ordained to everlasting death." " These 
angels and men, thus predestinated and 
foreordained, are particularly and un- 
changeably designed ; and their num- 
ber is so certain and definite that it 
cannot be either increased or dimin- 
ished." " Those of mankind that are 
predestinated unto life, God, before the 
foundation of the world was laid, ac- 
cording to his eternal and immutable 
purpose, and the secret counsel and 
good pleasure of his will, hath chosen 
in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of 
his mere free grace and love, without 
any foresight of faith or good works, 
or perseverance in either of them, or 
any other thing in the creature, as con- 
ditions, or causes moving him thereto ; 
and all to the praise of his glorious 
grace," etc. 

I have made this quotation pretty 



36 MOBAL EVIL, 



lengthy because of its high claims to 
consideration ; and also because I de- 
sired to do the distinguished authors 
of it full justice. Aloreover, I am not 
quite sure that I understand the quota- 
tions fully. There are, however, three 
items of capital importance which seem 
to be so plainly stated as to leave no 
room for reasonable doubt. They are : 
1. '' God, from all eternity, did . . . 
freely and unchangeably ordain what- 
soever comes to pass." 2. . . ''Neith- 
er is God the author of sin." 3. . . . 
" Nor is violence offered to the will of 
the creatures ; nor is the liberty or con- 
tingency of second causes takeu 
away." 

Let us look at these statements and 
find what is their bearing on the ques- 
tion of moral evil. 

1. Did God, from all eternity, freely 
and unchangeably ordain whatsoever 
comes to pass ? If the word ordain^ 
in this quotation, is to be taken to sig- 



MOBAL EVIL. 37 

nify, appoint or fix, so that whatever 
deed or thing transpires God is to be 
understood as having appointed or de- 
manded it, then every deed or event 
that transpires is the fulfilling of the 
will of God and is, therefore, not a sin. 

If this be so, since God cannot vio- 
late his own will, it follows that there 
is not and cannot be any such thing as 
sin or moral evil ; and so, all inquiries 
as to its origin, author or end, are made 
in ignorance. , 

The austerities of this view of our 
subject are not lessened by the state- 
ment that " God is not the author of 
sin." Of course he is not. If sin be a 
violation of the will of God, as it is, he 
is, of course, not the author of sin; for, 
no being, God, angel or man, can mo- 
late Ms own will. Nor is the situation 
improved by the declaration, '' JSTor is 
violence offered to the will of the crea- 
tures." After saying that God did, 
from all eternity or before the founda- 



38 310 BAL EVIL. 



tion of the world, ordain, or fix unalter- 
ably, whatsoever comes to pass, it is na 
proper apology or explanation to say 
that he did it so as to " offer no vio- 
lence " to the feelings, activities, hap- 
piness or life of the creature. 

2. On the division of our question 
regarding the origin of moral evil, the 
deliverance which I have marked two 
(2) is clear : Grod is not the author 
thereof. If it were possible for God to 
violate his own will, it is not a case 
made out that God is not the author of 
sin, provided he did " from all eternity 
freely and unchangeably ordain what- 
soever comes to pass." 

There certainly can be no sin unless 
something comes to pass ; and as God 
did freely and unchangeably ordain all 
such things, it is not apparent to me 
that, if there be sin in the world, God 
is not its author. This particular 
theme is more fully considered at an- 



MOBAL EVIL, 39 



Other place in these pages ; so I dis- 
miss it here. 

3. It is said: . . . ^'N'or is violence 
offered to the will of the creatures," 
etc. In view of what precedes this as- 
sertion, it is hard, if not impossible, to 
imagine anything more irrational and 
absurd. To tie one, hand and foot, and 
then say to him, '' Be ye warmed and 
filled," whereas it is not possible for 
him to do either, is not a reasonable 
procedure, to say the least. But the 
authors of this language were good, 
and, many of them, great men, and 
therefore, they did not aim to talk non- 
sense. They could not have meant to 
say what their language seems fairly 
to import. Look at this : " Some men 
and angels are predestinated unto ever- 
lasting life, and others foreordained to 
everlasting death. These angels and men 
thus predestinated and foreordained 
are particularly and unchangeably de- 
signed ; and their number is so certain 



40 MOBAL EVIL, 



and definite that it cannot be either in- 
creased or diminished." The " some 
men and angels " of this extract, " pre- 
destinated to everlasting life " and 
" foreordained to everlasting death," 
constitute the sum of all the men and 
angels of all time and of all eternity ; 
for so the phrases signify. This "pre- 
destinating" and ''foreordaining" unto 
life and death was done " before the 
foundation of the world was laid." 
Not only so, but it was done before 
men or angels were in existence ; and 
moreover, God did it " out of his mere 
free grace and love, without any fore- 
sight of faith or good works ... in 
the creature, as conditions or causes, 
moving him thereunto." Therefore, in 
the matter of being either saved or lost, 
I do. not see, on this theory, that men 
or angels have, have had, ever will or 
can have any option or will. A being 
— angel or man — that has no will in 
any matter, cannot therein sin. Nor 



MOBAL EVIL, 41 



do I believe that the siren note, — " Nor 
is violence offered to the will of the 
creature," — will avail to relieve this 
theory from a logical conclusion most 
inadmissible and embarrassing : God 
is the author of sin, or else there is no 
such thing. According to these data it 
seems certain that neither men nor 
angels have sinned. And, as God can- 
not sin, it follows, as before, there is no 
such thing as sin in the world ; there 
never was nor can be. 

4. But sin is here. Of this fact 
there is no reasonable doubt. How 
best may we account for its presence 
among men ? It seems to me that the 
most rational or the least objectionable 
way of accounting for it is to suppose 
that God made man in his own image 
with a will power of Ms own^ capable 
of acting in this way or not in defiance 
of God, angels, men, demons, or things 
present, past, or to come. Every man 
feels that he has this power ; that is. 



42 MOBAL EVIL, 

he has an ineradicable conviction^ 
which I suppose is instinctive or intui- 
tive, that he himself chooses his own 
course of conduct. . Every one feels 
that if he were bereft of the right and 
power to do as he himself decides to 
be his duty, privilege or right to do, 
his manhood is gone ; he is more than 
an orphan ; he is a machine. My 
friend is no friend of mine, if he is 
what he is to me by reason of an abso- 
lute compulsion^ db extra^ whatever \ 
that is, if he is not my friend of his 
own uncoerced, unembarrassed, un- 
trammeled will. If man be not entirely 
free to choose or to refuse, if his acts 
result not from his own volitions, but 
from volitions born out of over-master- 
ing circumstances or motives, then, as 
I see things, the terms, gratitude, re- 
spect, affection, love, etc., become un- 
meaning and worship is an impossibil- 
ity. To make religion a possibility, 
and heaven attainable, man must be a 



MOBAL EVIL, 43 



free moral agent. No predestination, 
foreordination, decree, election, Divine 
prevision, circumstance or motive, must 
be allowed to despoil man of his birth- 
right to free moral agency; for he is 
not, in that case, fit for either heaven 
or perdition. 

Again, if man is not a free moral 
agent he is not a sinner ; if he is not a 
sinner he has no need of a Savior ; if 
he needs no Savior he certainly has 
none, and therefore, the whole remedial 
system, Old Testament and N^ew, is 
human and false. So matters seem to 
me. 

5. But when I assert that the will 
of man is free, I do not mean that man 
is absolutely independent. He is often 
beset by gulfs, walls and other phys- 
ical and intellectual barriers which are 
overmastering. But I do mean that, 
within the human sphere, God has not 
ordained, designed or planned any 
resisting, restraining, or controlling 



44 MOBAL EVIL. 



force over or in the way of man's 
will power so as to hinder or prevent 
his act of willing, when performed, 
from being Ms own act. And besides 
this, I mean that what God has not 
done directly, in this respect, he has 
not done at all. 

The fact that man is responsible to 
a superior for his acts, and for the man- 
ner of them, is no contradiction of this 
view. Indeed, it is on this ground 
alone that one can be held accountable 
to a superior for what he does. There 
is hardly a principle in the territory of 
mental or moral philosophy better es- 
tablished than that one should not be 
held as deserving of censure or praise 
for an act which he could not have 
avoided. 

It is on this ground that an infant or 
a lunatic is, by unanimous consent, 
held to be innocent wlien he takes 
human life. On this theory one is held 
to be innocent who destroys a life by 



MOBAL EVIL, 45 



an accident which he could not have 
avoided. It is on this ground that the 
hangman is not a murderer. This is 
the only ground on which society, civil 
or religious, is possible. It is on this 
hypothesis that man is of right amena- 
ble to law, human or divine. When 
one trespasses against me and turns 
and says he repents,'! am to, and I do, 
forgive him. This I do for the reason 
that I find in him now, or I suppose I do, 
a changed will. If I could for a mo- 
ment believe that he had made to me 
an unwilling protestation of penitence, 
I would not, / could not^ forgive Mm. 
No man, whatever his professions to 
the contrary may be, does or can for- 
give one who trespasses against him 
intentionally, unless the trespasser 
professes, to the conviction of the 
injured one, a changed will — re- 
pentance. Notwithstanding the bound- 
less love and mercy of God , although 
he knows our frame and remembers 



46 MOBAL EVIL. 

that we are dust, yet, when we sin, he 
does not, because he cannot, forgive us, 
unless our will, in regard to loving and 
serving God, shall be changed. "We 
blame and praise men for, or in view 
of, their deeds; God judges men ac- 
cording to the deeds done in the body. 
But this procedure has qualification or 
explanation. If it should appear that 
any given man's deeds were not out of 
a true heart or willing mind, his deeds 
would avail him nothing. 

Where is the ground of my satisfac- 
tion when I see my children obeying 
my expressed wishes ? Is it not in the 
fact that I understand them to do so 
from a willing that is all their own ? If 
they obey my wishes because they 
must, all beauty and sweetness are 
gone from their deeds. But when they 
do my will while the evidence is plain 
to me that it was their will to do my 
ivill, then I can, and I was made to, 
love them. Before an act can possibly 



MOBAL EVIL. 47 

have any merit or demerit in it, in 
one's mind, he must see or think he 
sees that the actor could have acted in 
the opposite way. Therefore it must 
he possible that one may be vicious, if 
it be possible that he may be virtuous. 
The condition of its being possible for 
one to be saved is that it is possible 
that he may be lost. This reasoning 
applies, of course, to those only whose 
salvation is conditioned on character. 
If one should be brought into court 
charged with the perpetration of a high 
crime, though it should be proved that 
he did the formal act as charged, yet if 
it appear to the satisfaction of the 
court that the man did not act of his 
own volition, but was compelled to the 
doing by no matter what force outside 
of his own will, he is at once acquitted. 
This is true, not of a man or community 
here and there only, but it is true of 
men " everywhere and always." The 
conviction that man is a free moral 



48 MOBAL EVIL. 



agent, which I take to be almost uni- 
versal, can hardly fail of having 
'much weight in establishing men's 
minds in our position. 

Let those who accept the doctrine of 
moral necessity, or who deny the free 
moral agency of man (and no doubt 
there are some who think they do), be 
put to the test. Let some one trespass 
against such an one cruelly and with- 
out a just cause, and he at once spon- 
taneously censures him for it. This he 
could not do, if he did really hold the 
doctrine of moral necessity as I have 
explained it. If he had really believed 
that God did "from all eternity" fore- 
ordain whatsoever comes to pass, he 
could not consistently have censured 
the trespasser for this one thing that 
came to pass. If it should be said that 
I have not explained the doctrine of 
predestination, foreordination, election, 
eternal decrees, etc., correctly, I would, 
in reply, admit that it is possible I 



MOB AU' EVIL. 49 



have not. I have said that I did not 
feel sure of having grasped the ideas of 
the authors in full and correctly. As I 
see them, it is certainly more creditable 
to an expounder to explain them en- 
tirely away than to give us any ex- 
planation of them that could be al- 
lowed to be at all of kin to the things 
explained. 

Now, let this trespasser turn to his 
injured friend and make it plain to him 
as holy writ that what he did was not 
done of his own will, but that it re- 
sulted from causes overmastering him, 
causes which he could not resist or 
control, and he at once forgives him. 
Why is this ? 

In the first instance he blamed him 
because he thought the man ought not 
to have done as he did. No matter 
what his creed was, he acted on the 
theory that the offender himself had 
the power to have acted differently. 
But as soon as he learned that the of- 

4 



m MORAL EVIL, 



fender could not have avoided doing as 
he did, his feeling of resentment was 
gone. 

6. But does not the Bible say that 
Ood hardened Pharaoh's heart that he 
should not let Israel go ? It does. The 
Bible, however, says, in regard to the 
same matter, that Pharaoh hardened 
his own heart. He that accepts the 
testimony of a witness in one case 
must take it in all the witness has to 
say. He that introduces the Bible to 
prove that God hardened Pharaoh's 
heart must accept the testimony of the 
same witness when it says that Pharaoh 
hardened his own heart. I find no dif- 
ficulty in believing both statements. It 
is taught in the New Testament, quite 
as plainly as in the Old, that God 
hardens people's hearts. It is also 
true that God has, in all the past, soft- 
ened men's hearts. He is now doing 
the same things. The gospel, in the 
work that was being done by Paul in 



MOBAL EVIL. 51 



Macedonia, was a savour of both life 
and death. It either softened or hard- 
ened the hearts of his hearers. I think 
men's hearts are now often made hard 
by reason of the power of the Gospel. 
And, according to a natural law, the 
greater the force put forth in the 
preaching of the gospel, if the influ- 
ence be resisted, the greater is the 
hardening effect produced. 

HvTow it is, in the Bible, often said 
that God hardens those hearts which 
grow hard under the divine means of 
softening them. 

If Pharaoh's heart had been made 
hard by the direct, irresistible power 
of God, and in regard to the resisting 
of said power he was not consulted and 
had no option, it follows that in no 
proper sense of the word did he harden 
his own heart. But it is stated, and is, 
therefore, a fact in the proper sense of 
^he word, that Pharaoh did himself 



52 MOBAL EVIL, 



harden his own heart ; hence, this hy- 
pothesis is false. 

No heart can be hardened, in any 
way, except it be guilty of sin. This 
will be conceded by the reader. Of 
this sin God cannot be the author, but 
man certainly is. Therefore, God did 
not and does not harden the heart of 
any one, except as he uses means for 
its betterment, which, being sinfully 
rejected, the heart is thereby made 
hard. 

If God were the author, wholly the 
author, of one's heart being made hard, 
it must needs be by his being the 
author of that one's sinning, the only 
means by which that end can be 
reached. But, as God cannot be the 
author of the sinning he is, therefore, 
not the author of one's heart being 
made hard, except in the sense before 
explained. 

God has roused up^ and perhaps 
raised up men, good and bad, through 



MOBAL EVIL, 53 

whom to accomplish his purpose. But 
in all such cases he sees or foresees 
that the parties selected are or will be 
suited to his purposes, which are 
always good. It cannot be that in 
such cases he makes or causes his 
Toused-up or raised-up men, by means 
of an arbitrary nature, to be either 
good or bad. There are, no doubt, 
many things in the spiritual kingdom 
of God, as we know there are in the 
physical, that are quite above or be- 
yond our comprehension ; but that it is 
possible for God, even, to make a man 
either good or bad in respect to his 
moral character^ without the man's 
consent, fairly obtained and freely 
given, I do not see ; nor can I conceive 
such an event to be a moral possibility. 
The manner of God's making any one 
heart hard, is the manner of his mak- 
ing all other hearts either soft or hard- 
It is the same sun that, shining on the 
the honey softens it, but shining on the 



54 MOBAL EVIL. 



clay hardens it. The current events of 
the entire remedial system, and espec- 
ially the recorded facts in the conver- 
sions of sinners mentioned in the New 
Testament, furnish abundant evidence 
that God softened men's hearts in the 
time of the apostles by arguments and 
motives which sinners had the power 
to accept or to reject, and which some 
sinners accepted and some rejected. 

Read Heb. 3: 7-15, 4 : 7 and Psa. 
95: 7-11. In these and other like 
Scriptures the manner in which God 
hardened men's hearts seems plainly 
to be this : God spoke to them for 
their good ; they heard his voice, but 
they would not regard his will ; they 
would have none of his reproofs ; they 
would not have God to reign over 
them ; and so, their hearts were made, 
or they became, hard. 

The foregoing general statements and 
reflections are, perhaps, sufficient to the 
readers' minds for the more thorough. 



MOBAL EVIL, 55 



and systematic investigation of the sub- 
ject of Moral Evil, in all of its more 
important phases, contemplated and at- 
tempted in the following pages. 



MORAL EVIL— ITS NATURE AND 
ORIGIN. 



CHAPTER I. 

DEFIKITIO]N"S. 

1. An inquiry into this question in- 
volves the necessity of defining the 
terms, moral and evil. 

The word moral originally signified 
manners or conduct. His morals were 
good who did or acted well, and his 
were bad who acted badly. The word 
at present designates, not so much the 
the actions of men as it does the prin- 
ciples of action, or the laws of man's 
being which determine his conduct. 
Certain ones of these principles or 
laws, scientifically arranged or classi- 
fied, give us moral science. Moral 
good, then, in its elementary concep- 
tion, is a principle which if acted out 

(56) 



MOBAL EVIL. 57 



would result in actual good., Evil is 
also an elementary idea, and hence 
may not be analytically defined. But 
we may think of and talk around it, 
and so individualize it that it will 
stand forth in the mind a distinct con- 
ception. Evil is the opposite of s^c)d, 
as cold is the opposite of heat, or as 
light is the opposite of darkness, with 
this difference : cold is supposed to be 
the opposite or mere negation of heat, 
whereas evil is positive, is not simply 
the absence of good. 

Evil may be contemplated as both 
physical and moral. It is physical 
when the body only, or any material 
thing, is injuriously affected; but it is 
moral when injury is done to the soul. ^ 
Moral evil, then, when it is and so far 
as it may be contemplated as a princi- 
ple giving birth to action, is a princi- 
ple which, acted oat, damages the soul. 
This principle must sometimes be re- 
gardqd as evil before it is developed 



58 MOBAL EVIL. 



into an outward act, or even where it is 
never so developed. 

Sentiments, principles or conduct 
which, may be denominated moral, are 
such as in some way pertain to the 
conscience. This faculty or power of 
man's being is, like every other faculty 
of his nature, connatural and is for a. 
specific purpose. Its function is to cog- 
nize the distinct quality in actions 
which we denominate moral, and to re- 
port the fact to consciousness. But the 

n simple possession of a faculty or ca- 
pacity for discerning good and evil is 
not, of itself, enough for the purpose. 

. Just as good eyes are not sufficient for 
the purpose of vision without light, or 
for perfect vision without pure light, 
so we must, in order to make moral 
distinction have that which shall be to 
the moral sense what light is to the 
eye — intelligence, v 

As many things in the physical and 
intellectual worlds appear to be real 



MOBAL EVIL, 59 

that are not, so many things appear to 
be morally true that are really false. 
This fact may be accounted for in one 
or both of two ways : 1. It may arise 
from the fact that the faculty itself is 
impaired from disuse or abuse. 2. It 
may be that the medium through which 
the object is seen is insufficient in 
quantity, or is of bad quality./ Adam 
in the garden could never have had any 
conception of sin, or of moral evil, if 
there had been no law enjoining any 
duty upon him. It is equally true that 
he could have had no idea of holi- 
ness but for some such law. So the 
condition of its being possible that a 
man can have the idea of sin, an expe- 
rience of sin and may suffer the conse- 
quences of sin was also the condition 
of his being holy, and therefore happy. 
The law was given and man had the 
conception of sin ; it was violated, and 
he had an experience of sin. 

Moral evil may include more than 



60 MOBAL EVIL. 



the term sin does ; it certainly includes 
all that this term does, but I hardly 
think it includes more. If it does not 
include more, then, since it does cer- 
tainly not include less, if we give a 
definition of sin we give at the same 
time a definition of moral evil. If it 
does include more, then, sin is a species 
of moral evil, and from its definition 
we have but to subtract the specific 
difference, and the result is moral evil. 

If there be any difference between sin 
and moral evil we shall now disregard 
the circumstance, as the purpose we 
have in view may be accomplished 
without regard to it. What, then, is 
sin? "Sin is law-breaking." 1 John 
3 : 4. Take the word " transgress " or 
" law-breaking " to signify any infrac- 
tion of or want of compliance with law, 
and the definition is complete. It 
would seem, then, that moral evil is the 
violation of law. 

2. Let us now look at the question 



MOBAL EVIL. 61 

of moral evil a little more sharply. It 
is self-evident that moral evil is the act 
of a moral agent. The word act is here 
taken to include that which is done by 
either the body or mind. Bat not 
every such act is morally evil. It may 
be morally good. It would seem, then^ 
that the difference between moral evil 
and moral good consists not in any dif- 
ference of action, abstractly considered, 
but rather in the nature or in some cir- 
cumstance of the act. It is, hence, 
clear that we cannot show the precise 
element in which the evil of an act is, 
without first having before us an an- 
alysis of amoral act. What, then, are 
the elements of a moral act? and in 
which one of these elements, if in any, 
does the quality reside ? Or, at what 
point in the process does it take its 
birth ? I will not now say what these 
elements are, but will allow them to 
present themselves in natural order as 
we proceed. Let us suppose there are 



62 310 BAL EVIL. 

$50,000 of gold in the vault of one of 
our banks. The fact that the gold is 
there is no ground for thinking any 
one is either good or bad. Nor is the 
fact that I know it to be there any 
just ground for determining my moral 
character» Neither should the manner 
or way in which I have learned that 
the gold is in a certain vault afford 
grounds for determining me to be either 
a good or a bad man. The next thing 
in natural order, after knowing that the 
gold is in a certain place, is to desire 
It. This is not wrong. '' Desire when 
conceived brings forth sin." So says 
the apostle James. Clearly, the desire 
is not the sin, is not evil. With this 
agrees my consciousness. I am dis- 
tinctly aware of a desire for the gold, 
even while writing this sentence, but I 
am in the matter without sin. While 
we must eat and wear, while we must 
feed and educate our children for God, 
vvhile it is true that even in the days of 



MOBAL EVIL, 63 



Him who could make the stones bread 
or multiply the loaves and fishes, they 
had a treasury, it cannot be wrong to 
desire money. I am conscious of a 
desire for that gold, but I have gone no 
further than this. Here I pause and 
scan the secrets of my soul critically ; 
I question it severely. Is there any- 
thing wrong ? Answer, Nothing. 

Next in order, plans, in conception, 
rise up in my mind by which to obtain 
the coveted object. I can almost see 
them as they pass, one by one, into the 
field of view, where one is held before 
the mind's eye for a moment and then 
gives place for another. 

1. I might heg the ofiicer of the 
bank to give the money to me. But 
large money holders are frequently 
covetous men. I have no reason to 
think he would do so ; hence, this 
conception is dismissed. 2. I might 
labor for it. But I could never suc- 
ceed in this way ; life is too short. 3. 



64 MOBAL EVIL. 



I might exchange my property for it. 
But I nave not the property that would 
bring it, nor would I be materially 
benefited by the exchange if I had. 4. 
I might go to the bank, by some means 
obtain the key, and carry the money 
off. Now, in fact, all these conceptions 
have just passed through my mind, and 
yet I am not conscious of any evil in 
me therefore. The reader also has 
these conceptions necessarily in his 
mind as he reads these lines, and yet 
he knows that he is not, therefore, 
any the better or the worse for the 
fact. I do not believe that any human, 
being could, without outraging his 
sense of right, with just the premises 
before him mentioned, but no more, 
accuse me of any evil or wrong. 

Do you say that the fact that I 
went at a time when the cashier was 
absent, took the key from its hiding- 
place, unlocked the door of the safe 
and carried off the money, must fix 



MO HAL EVIL. 65 



the stain of guilt upon me ? I think 
differently. Suppose the cashier should 
come into court and testify that he had 
authorized me to do just what I did, 
I would, of course, be pronounced in- 
nocent. But suppose it should be in 
evidence that I had done the deed, as 
above, without the consent and against 
the will of the owner, would I then be 
guilty of evil ? I think the decision of 
this question would turn upon the 
proper decision of some questions not 
yet before us. It might appear that I 
was a lunatic, in which case the senti- 
ment of man, universally, is that I am 
not guilty. Though it might be right 
-to restrain me, it would be wrong to 
punish me as an evil-doer. Thus it 
seems that intelligence, or rather intel- 
lectual capacity, is one necessary con- 
dition of a moral act. Moreover, this 
intelligence must have a certain extent. 
The brute is intelligent, but not suffi- 
ciently so to render it capable of a 



66 MOBAL EVIL. 



moral act. So all men have decided. 
Of the required extent of this intelli- 
gence we will speak hereafter. 

Let us now post up a little. We 
have then: 1. The gold is in the vault. 
2. I believe it is there. 3. I desire it. 
4. The conception of a way by which 
to obtain it is in my mind. 5. I have 
intellectual capacity enough to see 
that in performing the act the rights of 
others will or will not be violated. 
But would I necessarily see, even with 
such intellectual capacity, that the 
rights of others would be violated ? I 
think not. However good the eyes or 
intellect, we cannot see in the dark. 
Light is as necessary to seeing as are 
good eyes, both intellectually and phys- 
ically. So, it seems to me, Paul 
teaches in his letter to the Romans (3 : 
20): " For by law is the knowledge of 
sin," and, " I had not known sin but 
by (or through) law." The rights of 
others can be recognized by one only 



MOBAL EVIL, 67 



through the knowledge of a law that 
prescribes them. ^ So, I suppose the ex- 
istence of a law which sets forth the 
reciprocal rights and obligations grow- 
ing out of the relations which exist be- 
tween parties is a necessary element of 
a moral act, or of one involving the 
idea [of good or eviL Nor do I believe 
that the mere existence of such a law 
with the capacity for understanding it, is 
enough ; it must be actually recognized 
as such a law ; or, if not, one must be 
responsible for the knowledge of it. Still 
further, the law must appear to be the 
expressed will of those having right to 
prescribe law for the parties, or at 
least the party must be responsible for 
such knowledge. Hence, 6. The law 
of some rightful law-giver prescribing 
the rights of myself and the owner of 
the gold, is in existence, and I know it, 
or I am responsible for a knowledge of 
it. Now for the sake of the greater 
clearness, I reflect : 1. The gold is in 



68 MOBAL EVIL. 



the vault. 2. I know it is there. 3. 
I desire it. 4. The conception of an act 
by which to obtain it is in my mind. 

5. I have the capacity for seeing that I 
would or would not violate the rights 
of some one, should I execute my plan. 

6. The law of some one recognized as 
having the right to prescribe the rights 
and duties of myself and of the owner 
of the gold is in existence and I see it 
as such law, or I am responsible for 
seeing it so. In no one of these ele- 
ments is there moral quality. I do not 
mean that we could have, in a fully 
accomplished moral act, the quality 
sought without them, for we could not, 

'but only that we do not necessarily 
have it with them. The cloud is a 
very different thing from the lightning, 
though it is usually necessary to it. 

Now let us consider a conception 
which, in its execution, would involve 
us in the violation of the rights of oth- 
ers. Seen in this light, the question 



MOBAL EVIL. 69 



would arise : Shall I perform the act ? 
Suppose the answer is, I will. The will 
acts. It says yes, or it says no. These 
two monosyllables are all the words it 
can utter. Does it say yes ? Then I 
am guilty. Not one man in the world 
who understands the subject will say 
that I sinned till this moment ; nor will 
one deny that at this moment I sinned. 
For the truth of this statement we 
are compelled to appeal to conscious- 
ness. Having the case fairly and fully 
stated, let the appeal be made to the 
consciousness of men, and all that can 
be done is done. A seventh element 
then, is will. Nor is the quality in the 
will, abstractly considered, but it de- 
pends upon whether or not the act is to 
violate the rights of others. The eighth 
element in a fully accomplished moral 
act, is the outward performance. These 
are all the elements of a fully developed 
moral act, I believe. The quality of 
the act does not reside in the outward 



70 3I0BAL EVIL. 



act. It is always born before it, and 
therefore without it. 

Now it seems to me plain that the 
thing of which we speak and which we 
seek is found in or at the act of willing. 
It may not be precisely correct to say 
that the quality is in the will, nor yet to 
say that it is in the act of willing. It 
is the ego that wills. For doing this it 
has a capacity or faculty which we 
should call the faculty of will. It is ta 
this ego., and not to its faculty nor to 
what the faculty does, that the moral 
quality belongs. But if the questiou 
should be as to the time of its birth, 
the answer is : It is cognized at the 
moment of willing and not before. 
Strictly speaking, the moral quality is 
in no element of an act but it is in the 
actor. 

Moral evil, then, seems to be the will- 
ing to do that which is wrong or which is 
in violation of the known or knowable 



MOBAL EVIL. 71 



rights of others. Thus we answer the 
question. What is moral evil ? 



CHAPTER II. 

AUTHOR OF. MORAL EYIL. 

The question, What is the origin of 
moral evil, I divide into two parts : 1. 
What is the manner of its origin ? 2. 
Who is its author ? The manner of its 
origin is quite sufficiently discussed in 
the foregoing arguments for our ^pres- 
ent purpose. 

Let us, then, address ourselves to the 
investigation of the second division of 
the question. It seems to me that he vrho 
does the willing, in every case in which, 
moral evil arises, is the author thereof. 
Nor do I believe that any one who is 
not under the overmastering power of 
a false psychology or theology can be 
found that would decide differentlv. 
This is certainly true unless the will of 
the one who does will is under the ab- 
solute control of some extraneous 

(72) 



MOBAL EVIL. 73 



power that determines its decision. 
JN'or do I mean to intimate that if this 
were the case the fact would alter the 
conclusion. I suppose it would not. 

1. Let the question be raised : 
Whence the willing? Is the ego self- 
acting, or is it acted ? Do I myself will, 
or am I caused to will? Or state it 
thus : Is the act of willing mine, or is 
it the act of another ? If it is mine, 
then / may be a sinner ; if it is not 
mine, then I cannot be. In any event, 
lie who does the willing is the actor, 
and if the act be morally evil, is the 
evil doer. To this conclusion we are 
held bond-slaves by the conditions of 
our being ; God made us so, to feel so. 
But, says the fatalist, the act of willing 
is not the ego self-acting, but it is the 
ego constrained to act. That is, the 
ego acting is an effect following an ade- 
quate cause, over which it possesses no 
controlling power. Or, more briefly 
and perhaps more clearly, the ego 



74 MOBAL EVIL. 



never acts ; it is moved by some ante- 
cedent and extraneous force, as the ap- 
ple falls from the tree to the ground by 
the force of gravity. The assumption 
upon which this conclusion is based is: 
no effect can be without an adequate 
cause ; the act of willing is an effect ; 
it must, then, have an adequate cause. 
The major premise in this syllogism is 
no doubt true. Assume that any given 
thing is an effect and it must follow 
that it had an adequate cause. In the 
minor premise it is assumed that the 
act of willing is an effect. This I grant 
is true. But the real question is not 
whether the act of willing is an effect, 
but it is rather. What is the real cause 
of the act ? Says the fatalist, if the act 
of willing is caused or is an effect, then 
the will is not free. If by this it be 
meant that the act of willing consid- 
ered as something distinct from the 
being that wills, or the actor, is con- 
strained and not free,*I grant it. The 



MOBAL EVIL. 75 



absurdity of an act, in the abstract, be- 
ing a free agent or an agent at all in 
any sense, is sufficiently apparent, and 
hence neither needs nor deserves fur- 
ther notice. For the same reason the 
mere faculty of will, in the abstract, is 
not a free agent, but only a passive in- 
strument. But if it be meant that the 
ego is itself not free in the act of vrill- 
ing, that it cannot and does not itself 
will without outside controlling force^ 
I deny it. I hold that the act of will- 
ing is an effect, and that the cause 
which produces it is the soul itself, 
acting without constraint ; that we are 
not to look beyond this for the real 
efficient actor. 

President Edwards, who was the 
champion of the fatalists' forces in the 
western continent, after demonstrating 
what I suppose no one ever denied: 
" That nothing taketh beginning from 
itself," proceeds to say that '' the will is 
always determined by the strongest 



76 MOBAL EVIL. 

motive." Now, since the act of willing 
is the product . of that which wills, it 
follows that this proposition must mean 
that the "strongest motive" determines 
what the act in any given case shall be, 
by absolutely controlling that which 
does the willing, or by causing it to 
perform that particular act. With the 
proposition thus understood, I ask, 
how does any one know that the 
" strongest motive " controls the will ? 
Is the fact that the will acts, in a cer- 
tain case, in the direction of something 
supposed to be a motive, the proof that 
that motive controlled the will ? Is the 
fact that a certain motive controlled 
the will proved by the fact that the will 
acted in the case in the direction of 
that given motive ? Then the whole is 
the shallow fallacy of arguing in a cir- 
cle. That is, we are to know that 
motive controls the will from the fact 
that the will is controlled by the mo- 
tive. How did the President know but 



MOBAL EVIL. 77 



that the fact that the will acts in the 
direction of a given motive results from 
the fact simply that the will-power it- 
self so determined ? Clearly, he does 
not know. May it not be that the will 
power, or the ego^ determines the 
strength of the motive, and not that the 
motive determines the action of the 
will? This may be true for aught I 
can see in the phenomena of our being 
to the contrary. It certainly does no 
violence to any psychological principle 
or fact known to philosophy to suppose 
this to be true. 

2. But I think there are stubborn 
facts directly and fatally against the 
President's position. 

It seems to me that I have often been 
conscious of successful efforts made by 
my soul to resist the influence of things 
called motives, that I have dismissed 
some and called up others, which after 
being duly considered, were in turn dis- 
missed ; that I did finally myself de- 



78 MOBAL EVIL. 



termine the direction of my action. If 
this be true, and I see not that it could 
Ibe false, then the hypothesis that mo- 
tive controls the will is false. But, 
says the objector, there is some reason 
in every case for the choice which a 
man makes, and that reason lies out in 
the' territory of the non ego. It is 
thought that, therefore, the will-power 
is constrained and not free. This con- 
clusion I hold to be hasty and unwise. 
True, we should not act without a rea- 
son, nor against reason; but it does 
not hence follow that the reason or 
motive in any case stands in the rela- 
tion to the will-power that cause does 
to its effect. There is a vast difference 
between a reason and a cause. It is of 
the nature of a cause that it is always 
followed by its effect. Whereas, a 
reason so far as anything objective 
may be regarded as a reason, is not 
always followed by its effect. If it 
were always so followed, it would then 



MOBAL EVIL. 79 

cease to Tbe a reason ; it would be a 
cause. 

Objective reasons, so far as objects 
may be reasons, are uniform, and would 
tend to produce uniform results or ef- 
fects. Moreover, these effects must 
always be good, if tliey are dependent 
■entirely upon the reasons which pro- 
duce them ; for their powers, as outside 
forces, are all in themselves and are of 
God, and are therefore very good. But 
in fact the effects of so-called objective 
reasons are not always good. The 
cause of this must of course be sought 
outside of the objects called reasons. 
It follows, then, that the will is not 
always controlled by objective reasons. 
We admit that the will power does not 
act without a reason; still it appears 
to me that the one that wills deter- 
mines for himself the reason of his ac- 
tion. This reason is often, in the con- 
crete, bad, whereas in the abstract, or 
so far as the reason for an act is found 



80 MOBAL EVIL. 



in any objective thing, it is never bad. 
Hence, the ultimate controlling power 
in bringing about any act is not in 
any objective thing, as a reason, but 
is in the reasoner. 

It is further held that it is incon- 
ceivable that the soul itself can will, or 
act in the matter of willing, without 
some antecedent power or force exerted 
Mnding it to act. But God wills, and 
that, too, without any such antecedent 
force being exerted over his will-power. 
So we must believe. 

He ♦ could certainly have made man 
with a like capacity if he had willed 
to do so. To say that he did not do so 
is to absurdly beg the question. To 
prove that he did not do so is what no 
one has done or can do. I believe it to 
be most in harmony with all the known 
phenomena of the soul's actions to be- 
lieve that God did make man, like him- 
self, capable of willing without the 
influence of an antecedent controlling 



MOBAL EVIL, 81 



force exerted over him. If this be not 
true, then man is not the author of 
moral evil in any case. 

It has already been stated that 
abstract motives, or outward objects, 
possess no moral qualities, either good 
or bad, which they are of themselves 
capable of imparting. Indeed, they 
possess no moral quality. But if it 
must be conceded that qualities in out- 
ward objects exert a controlling power 
over the soul, causing or determining its 
acts of will, then, since man is not the 
author of these controlling outward 
objects, nor of their powers which are 
claimed to control the will, he is not 
the author of any act of volition. But 
we have seen that moral evil arises out 
of certain volitions ; hence man is not, 
on this assumption, the author of moral 
evil. The objects that possess the 
qualities which serve to control the 
will are themselves with their qualities, 
effects, and have their cause or author 



82 MORAL EVIL. 



in God. The controlling power exerted 
by them is, therefore, only instrument- 
al, whereas the real actor is God. That 
is, God does actually and absolutely 
control the will. Hence he is, on this 
hypothesis, the author of moral evil. 
But this conclusion, legitimate and 
necessarj^ as it is from the premises, is 
false and inadmissible. Therefore the 
hypothesis from which it comes is false 
also. 

It has been held, I believe, that God 
put within man certain dispositions or 
capacities, and that he created outward 
objects invested with certain qualities 
so adjusted to these capacities that the 
soul is always caused, in the absolute 
and efficient sense of the term, to will 
certain things. Or, in the language of 
dialecticians, the non-ego controls and 
determines the action of the ego. Is 
this true? If so, it is impossible to 
believe that man is the author of sin in 
any sense. 



MOBAL EVIL. 83 



A knowledge of that gold in the 
vault excited my desire. That desire 
is the motive power of the fatalist. 
The desire to regard or not to violate 
the rights of others is also a motive 
power. The fact that there is no way 
in which I might obtain the gold ex- 
cept by stealing it does not lessen my 
desire for it. These two motive powers 
are now in conflict. In the case of 
some men the preponderance of power 
is decidedly in favor of righteousness ; 
in others it is decidedly the reverse. 
Why this difference? The objects them- 
selves are always the same ; they are 
constant quantities. The cause of the 
difference in the effects produced upon 
different persons is to be sought, not in 
the objects, but in the persons. And 
evidently this difference in the persons 
is in and of themselves, or is it of God ? 
If the former be true, then man is the 
author of sin or moral evil ; but if the 
latter, God is its author. If the former 



84 3I0BAL EVIL. 

be true, tlien man is a free agent, and 
the theory of moral necessity is false ; 
if the latter be true, then the fatalist is 
right. 

It is also noticeable that the same 
extrinsic motive influence is followed 
by different effects upon the same 
person at different times. At one time 
he indignantly refuses to steal the 
$50,000.00, whereas, at another time 
near by and with other influences es- 
sentially the same, he readily steals 
the same amount. Why is this ? The 
motive, as an outward thing in itself, 
continued the same. Hence the differ- 
ence in the result is found to be not in 
the motive, but, as before, in the man or 
in his Maker. If in the former, he is a 
free agent and the author of sin ; if in 
the latter, God is the author of sin. 

It will be seen that I do not attempt 
to point out the author of moral evil in 
the case of its first existence or when it 
was first born in God's universe, but 



MOBAL EVIL, 85 

only to show who its author is in any 
given case. In the case of the angels 
that kept not their first estate, or that 
tinned, I suppose themselves to have 
l)een the authors of the sin that ruined 
them. In the case of the first sin, the 
motives which we may say induced it 
could have had no evil in themselves 
abstractly ; and therefore they could not 
have exerted morally an evil influence. 
Neither could God have exerted, 
directly or indirectly, any evil influence 
over them. Nay, more, God could not 
have failed to make his angel creatures 
for virtue and not for vice, and there- 
fore he did make them capable of the 
virtue designed in their creation. If it 
be asked. How, then, did the angels 
come to sin ? the answer is easy. God 
has a government for Heaven as well 
as for the Earth, for angels as well as 
for men. The angels were placed under 
laws which they did not keep. The 
cause of their violating the laws given 



S6 MOBAL EVIL. 



them by the righteous Lord was them- 
sel^^es, wholly themselves. If we argue 
that iu view of the angelic nature, we 
cannot see how the desire for that 
which was wrong could have sprung 
Tip in their hearts, the reply is : Our 
ignorance is no premise for the conclu- 
sion that it did not originate in and of 
themselves. 

"We assume that God did not in any 
way make them sin, or make them to 
sin. Circumstances have no evil in 
them, and hence can impart none ; 
therefore the angels were the authors 
of their sins. Moreover, we perhaps 
assume to know more of the angelic 
nature than we really do know; or, 
much of what we suppose we know of 
their nature is possibly false. Why 
may not the angels' sin have arisen just 
as our sin does? Indeed, since we 
reason from the known to the unknown, 
we are compelled to suppose it did. 
There is no reason to suppose there was- 



3I0BAL EVIL. 87 



anything peculiar about their sin. The 
same is true in regard to the sin in the 
Garden. Adam and Eve sinned when 
they ate the forbidden fruit. They 
were themselves the authors of their 
sin. Their sin occurred just as every 
other sin does and must. They saw 
the forbidden fruit, they lusted after it, 
they took and ate of it^ they sinned. 

The secret of many men's troubles 
over the question of moral evil will be 
found to be a quarrel with God for 
having made things as he did ; or it 
is in a misunderstanding of the na- 
ture that their Maker did really give 
them. An error concerning man's na- 
ture being taken and accepted, a false 
philosophy, mental and moral, and a 
false theology, will follow. 

I am convinced that no fatalist 
understands the science of mind, and 
hence, no such one can produce a cor- 
rect mental or moral science. His 
elementary principles and definitions 



88 MOBAL EVIL. 



being wrong, his system embracing 
them must be wrong also. 



CHAPTER III. 

WILL MORAL EVIL HAVE AN" END ? 

The decision of this question 
should not be attempted without or un- 
til a calm, severe and protracted exam- 
ination of it. Of one thing we are cer- 
tain at the very beginning. Moral evil 
has not yet come to an end. We are 
enabled, from our present point of 
view, to see and to study its history 
for four or five thousand years, and at 
no time has its end seemed to be 
near or even to be approaching. But 
suppose I should assert, with any com- 
forting degree of assurance, that moral 
evil will certainly end, what must the 
grounds of the conclusion be? It 
seems to me that they would be : 1. 
The intuitions of my reason furnish or 
force this decision ; or, 2nd. The his- 
tory of the past points to this conclu- 

(89) 



90 MOBAL EVIL. 



sion ; or 3rd. The lioly Scriptures teack 
it. 

1. In regard to the first head, I do 
not feel sure of being able to give a 
wholly unobjectionable view. I do feel 
safe, however, in saying that the 
world's innate ideas, if it have any on 
this subject, have not done much for it 
in furnishing or forcing this conclusion. 
While it has always meant to be 
blessed, it has never been blessed. 
While the wish has ever been for a 
paradise without a tempter or a tempt- 
ation, the fear, in view of sin confessed 
has ever been of calamity. 

The fact is, it is probably impossible 
not to think that sin must, unless it is 
forgiven, be punished. I believe every 
body who thinks believes this. So if 
one should assert that punishment for 
sin shall come to an end, it must be on 
the hypothesis that sin itself, or wrong- 
doing, shall end. Is it a necessity of 
our being to suppose that sinning will 



MOBAL EVIL. 91 



cease, soon or ever ? If any one should 
say so, might not some one ask in re- 
ply. Why, then, did it begin ? If, in the 
face of the fact of its at one time non- 
existence, with all the conditions and 
environments as good as could be, and 
as good as they can ever be expected 
to be, moral evil took beginning, might 
it not be that it will persist ? That is, 
if it could under the circumstances be- 
gin, and it did, might it not continue 
on atojvtos ? I feel sure we have no in- 
tuitions to the contrary. As long as 
men or angels are, as free moral agents, 
under any sort of government, we can- 
not rationally feel certain that the 
time will ever come when and after 
which there shall be no more sinning. 
But suppose we could see that sin- 
ning had ceased, or would certainly 
cease, what must we think of those 
who have already become guilty ? One 
who is guilty must either suffer or be 
pardoned. But, as suffering has no 



92 MOBAL EVIL, 



tendency to remove guilt, if it does end 
or is to end at all, it must be pardoned. 

When pardoned the work must be 
so effectually done that the one who 
was guilty shall have " no more con- 
science of sin," nor any fear of punish- 
ment for it. 

May we feel sure, a priori^ that all sin 
and guilt will be pardoned, so that no 
one shall any more sin, and that all 
guilt and fear of punishment shall be 
destroyed ? Such a glorious event may 
he in the future for us, but I have no 
premonitions in my soul of its coming. 

Some one has said, in substance, that 
it is inconsistent with the nature of 
God and with the purpose he must 
have had in man's creation that moral 
evil should continue on forever, or tliat 
it sliould never cease. If the one who 
dreamed this will try it, he will find 
the problem as to how, consistent with 
the nature of God and his purpose in 
the creation of men, moral evil could 



MOBAL EVIL, 9S 



have hegun^ a problem as hard to solve 
as the other. He will probably, if he 
is really a great man, find that of him- 
self he is, on this problem, able to do 
nothing. It is nearly of kin to Paul's 
question, '' Nay, but O man, who art 
thou that repliest against God? Shall 
the thing formed say to him that 
formed it, Why didst thou make me 
thus?" No one can certainly say or 
know all of Grod, as to why he did as he 
did and what will certainly be the out- 
conae of moral evil except as God, who 
only can know, shall reveal it. All of 
the nature of God with which I am ac- 
quainted, bearing upon this subject, is: 
God is perfectly good; he made man 
for virtue and happiness, and he will, 
as far and certainly as he can^ bring 
the end designed to pass ; or, which is 
the same thing, he will, if he can, put 
an end to moral evil. But, I am also 
obliged to suppose, God would have 
prevented the birth or existence of 



94 3I0BAL EVIL. 



moral evil if lie could ; and as lie did 
not prevent it, I suppose he could not. 
N'ow, as God did not prevent the exist- 
ence of moral evil in its beginning, it 
seems to me to follow that, maybe, he 
cannot and therefore will not, bring it 
to an end. If this be so, and I see not 
liow it could be otherwise, it is not a 
logical presumption to suppose that 
God can or will certainly bring moral 
evil to an end. 

Suppose God should undertake to 
bring moral evil to an end, and T sup- 
pose he has -done that very thing, how 
would he or must he proceed ? He could, 
I suppose, kill all men and angels, and 
in this way accomplish the end. But, 
the fact that he created men and angels 
is proof that their existence was a mor- 
al necessity to some end which we may 
possibly know or which we possibly 
may not know. In the creation, the 
contingency of sin, God either foresaw 
or he did not. If he did, then his de- 



MOBAL EVIL. 95 

cision was that, even with the moral 
evil foreseen, it was better to create 
than not. So it would follow also, and 
for the same reason, that, though God 
should foresee that evil should never 
«nd, still it was better to create men 
-and angels than not. 

But, suppose God did not foresee the 
<5ontingenc7 of sin, then what? It is 
at least true that he saw the fact as 
soon as it transpired, and events show 
that he decided that man had better 
live than die, the proof of which is, he 
did and does live. Now, as this de- 
cision of the Almighty is in fact before 
us, we not only have no reason to sup- 
pose that God will bring moral evil to 
an end in that way, but we are logical- 
ly certain that he will not do so. 

Again, God might hang or hold up 
Ibefore us the most bewitching, enchant- 
ing, alluring inducements promising 
iappiness, physical, intellectual, moral 
and spiritual, unmixed with sorrow, 



96 MOBAL EVIL, 



pains, tears or fears of death forever, if 
only man will put an end to moral evil, 
each man for himself. Yes, God might 
have done or might do all this, and, in- 
deed, he has done all this, and for this 
very purpose, too. It would seem to 
follow that this is God's way of solving 
the problem of sin, and that every other 
way is implicitly condemned. There- 
fore, I assume that this plan is not only 
the best that God could devise for put- 
ting to an end sin and its consequences, 
but it is the only plan God will ever 
adopt for this end. Indeed, of moral 
and spiritual influences, and God can 
employ no other kind in controlling 
men and angels, none better or mightier 
is conceivable. It follows that whoever 
fails to turn or be turned by the power 
of the Gospel cannot be turned. God 
has no resources of moral force to reach 
him. 

But, there is another element in God's 
moral government, in all moral govern- 



MORAL EVIL, 97 



ment, " the fear of punishment." As a 
''terror to evil doers" and, for ''praise 
to them that do well," is the fear of 
punishment. God might hold up before 
men the direst punishment in case they 
should live lives of unrighteousness. 
This, God has done. So, when we have 
considered all the moral persuasions to 
righteousness and dissuasions from vice, 
which God has employed, and which 
are found in the Word of God, to make 
an end of sin and its consequences, we 
are bound in reason to think that, like 
all of God's works, it is perfect. Now, 
from all we know, what must we say is 
the prospect or probability that these 
moral forces of God will ever put an 
end to moral evil ? I see no grounds 
for reasonable hope herein. Is it said 
that these reasonings, or at least some 
of them, have no logical force except 
with those who believe the Bible ? This 
is true. But a moment's thought will 
make it plain that no one else could 



98 3I0EAL EVIL. 



feel any concern on the subject. There 
can be no question with any one else 
in regard to moral evil. Where one 
has no God he can have no future, and 
therefore no hope in the world. Such 
an one must deny the existence of mor- 
al evil. So I suppose my reasoning is 
addressed rightly to those only who 
claim to believe the Bible, or who be- 
lieve that God is and is a rewarder of 
all men according to their works. 

2. Looked at historically, what is 
the conclusion in regard to the ending 
of moral evil ? 

That punishment for sin and crime is 
right, viewed both from the human and 
the Divine standpoint, is, I think, cer- 
tain. Whatever stands out distinctly 
in human history as a spontaneity, or 
is universal, is right. At least, there 
is no one, in such case, to object. That 
sin, or the evil doer, should be punish- 
ed is certainly the sentiment of man- 
kind. It is noticeable, too, that as civil- 



MORAL EVIL, 99 



ization advances this feature in govern- 
ment is everywhere maintained. Modes 
of punishment may have varied and 
the severity of punishment may have 
relaxed in places and at times, but the 
fact of punishment for sin and crime 
remains everywhere. It is beyond 
question that no government can or 
ever could exist long with the fear of 
punishment eliminated. No people in 
the world were ever willing to make the 
experiment of omitting it. 

That God did incorporate ^'fear of 
punishment" as an element of his mor- 
al and spiritual government, and that 
this fact is read in the Bible concern- 
ing all peoples and dispensations, is, I 
suppose, not doubted by any one. Im- 
mediately upon the creation, Gfod said, 
"In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die." Again it is said, 
" The fear of the Lord is the beginning 
of wisdom." Indeed, under Moses, 
^' every transgression and disobedience 



100 MOBAL EVIL, 



received a just recompense of reward.'' 
Under the better covenant it is said: 
" Of how much sorer punishment, think 
ye, shall he be thought worthy, who 
hath trodden under foot the Son of 
God?" etc. Notwithstanding these evi- 
dent deliverances of the reason and of 
the Word of God, there is skepticism 
in the world and even in the church on 
this subject. That there should be 
anything of the kind in the pulpit is 
decidedly inexcusable. 

Some persons say they believe the 
Bible, only they do not believe that it 
declares punishment, or at least severe 
or endless punishment, against evil 
doers. Sin, they allow, is a bad thing, 
and something terrible will happen to 
the evil-doer. But what is it, I ask, 
will happen to the one who leads a life 
of sin that will not befall the one who 
lives a holy life ? Is the sinner poor ? 
So is the righteous. Has he but few 
friends in the world ? So it often is 



MOBAL EVIL, 101 

with the righteous. Has he much of 
bodily affliction and grief of spirit? 
The good have like afflictions also. 
Does the wicked follow the objects of 
his heart's affections to the grave, and 
finally enter it himself? So it comes 
to the righteous. Is it said. The sinner 
suffers great and terrible remorse of 
conscience on account of his sins ? The 
good, conscientious man, probably suf- 
fers more, in this respect, than does he; 
for, the more one sins the less he suf- 
fers, in his conscience, for wrong doing. 
Does one say. There is at least no hell 
or devil ? No man living has any ^^r- 
sonal knowledge on this subject, nor 
has he ever seen one who has. We 
know but little of the future. Indeed 
we, strictly speaking, Jknow nothing of 
it. In regard to the future we are com- 
pelled to rely wholly upon those who 
do know something of it. So, our know- 
ing the future or any of its happenings, 
is conditioned upon the revelations of 



102 MOBAL EVIL. 

God, who only knows what it will 
bring to us. It seems to me, we cannot 
know whether moral evil, which we 
Tcnow does not end in this life, will 
come to an end in the future or not, 
except as the Word of God decides the 
question. Past history does not say 
that moral evil has at any time had aa 
end, nor does it assert that it will. 



CHAPTER IV. 

BO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES TEACH THAT 
MORAL EVIL SHALL END ? 

I see a man living in sin all his life. 
He is often warned, but he hardens his 
heart and persists in his sinful life. 
Must I promise him life, happiness for- 
ever, beyond the grave ? I would prom- 
ise the wicked life if it were right to do 
so. To say it is right, independently 
of what God says on the subject, or 
without revelation, is what no one is 
qualified to do and, therefore, what no 
one should dare to do. God only 
knows, and hence he only is compe- 
tent to decide this question. To threat- 
en the righteous as God has not threat- 
ened him, is to do wrong. To strength- 
en the hands of the wicked that he 
should not return from his wicked ways, 
by promising him life, is to do even 

(103^ 



104 MOBAL EVIL, 



the wicked man himself a deep wrong. 
Ezek. 13 : 23. Is the punishment of the 
wicked endless ? If God says so, it is ; 
if not, then it is not. If God has said 
neither yes nor no, then we cannot 
know. To say that such punishtnent 
is so terrible that God could not be the 
author of it, or rather, could not permit 
it, is to assert what we do not and can- 
not, a priori, know to be true. To at- 
tempt to set aside severe or endless pun- 
ishment on this ground, is to contradict 
a large number of the statements of the 
Bible and to ignore some of the plain- 
est teachings of human experience and 
observation. Hundreds of things men- 
tioned in the Bible and noted in our 
daily experience, as oppressions, mur- 
ders, idolatries and all the Heaven- 
daring and God-defying crimes of all 
the ages which have occurred and are 
passing, are wholly inconsistent with 
such a claim. 

Suppose A should sin against B, 



MOBAL EVIL. 105 



when will B forgive him ? I ask not, 
when will he not hate or persecute or 
seek to destroy him ? but when will he 
forgive him altogether, ex animo^ and 
hold or regard him as though he had 
never sinned ? I suppose B will do this 
when A repents from the heart and, as 
far as possible, rights the wrong, accord- 
ing as B feels the wrong and requires 
reparation at his hands. Before this 
and without this men are not accustom- 
ed to expect forgiveness, or to grant it 
to others ; nor does God grant forgive- 
ness except on the ground named. Now 
suppose A never repents, then of 
course B never forgives him. A is 
cut off from B forever, and if it be a 
calamity and involves A in misery, 
it is calamity and misery forever. So, * 
if the sinner never repents of that 
which separates between him and his 
God, the separation must be endless. 
There are certain characters who are 
forever excluded from the society of 



106 310 BAL EVIL, 



our wives and daughters if they do not 
repent. Nor do we, in such case, allow 
that we are unkind, but that the very 
reverse is true ; nor do we hold that loe 
exclude them, but that they exclude 
themselves. So, we see, the sinner 
dying impenitent does not at once, if at 
all, go into Heaven. If he were to do 
so Jesus could not say to him, " Well 
done, good and faithful servant," every 
word of which 'would be a lie. But 
might he not repent after death ? Sup- 
pose he should ; then it could not be* 
said that he is ''judged according to 
the deeds done in (or through) the 
body." 2 Cor. 5 : 10. His final condi- 
tion would be determined by what took 
place after and out of the body, which 
contradicts Paul. Moreover, the Bible 
certainly does not plainly say that any 
one will have the privilege of repenting, 
or that he ^will actually repent in the 
future life or state. What, aside from 
the teachings of the Bible, would wa 



MOBAL l^^VIL. 107 



naturally expect on this subject ? This, 
I suppose : If the lost one should have 
better society and more godly sur- 
roundings ; if he should have a better, 
a more tender or affecting gospel 
preached to him by evangelists more 
able to deliver the message of God in 
the future life than he had in this ; if 
he could be expected there to be 
younger in sin, and hence more im- 
pressible than while he lived on earth, 
then perhaps we might surmise ib 
possible that the lost one might repent 
after death. But what are the facts in 
the case ? 

1. It is not my information that the 
sinner will be surrounded by more 
pious, prayerful mothers, fathers, sis- 
ters, neighbors, preachers and churches, 
preaching to him, praying for him, 
weeping over him and crying to him, 
saying, '' Why will you die ?" in the 
future life than he had here. 

2. Can reason or imagination con- 



108 MOBAL EVIL. 



ceive of a gospel more affecting or soul- 
subduing than is the present gospel of 
Jesus Christ ? What more could God 
have done than he has done in the 
gospel of his grace ? He has no other 
Son to give, and no gift more dear or 
sacrifice greater than his only begotten 
and well beloved Son, Jesus. I venture 
to assert that a greater or better gospel 
cannot and hence will not be given. 

3. There will not, for there cannot, 
be better preachers in perdition than 
we have here. The stars of hope and 
promise had been rising here and there, 
now and then, for four thousand years, 
pointing to and preparing the world for 
His coming. When this expectation of, 
and crying anxiety for, and this dying 
want of a helper and healer had come 
to its uttermost, Jesus, the Sun of Righ- 
teousness, with healing in his beams, 
arose. 

He was heralded by the angels, the 
Star in the east, and by John the Bap- 



MOBAL EVIL. 109 



tist. Abraham preached the then 
coming gospel. John the Baptist an- 
nounced it and, so did Jesus himself. 
Paul says: "It began to be spoken 
by the Lord and was confirmed to us 
by those who heard him, God also 
bearing witness with them by signs, 
wonders and divers miracles and gifts 
of the Holy Spirit." What a preach- 
ing force we have here ! and such 
preachers ! We have here all the holy 
prophets since the world began ; and 
the Apostles, the Spirit, Jesus and the 
Father; also signs, wonders and mir- 
acles, good men and women by the 
hundreds. Again, we have the cruci- 
fixion and the resurrection, hungerings, 
stripes, imprisonments and martyr- 
doms. Is it probable that in perdition 
there will be better preachers than 
these ? 

It was not ignorance nor a want of 
infinite goodness that led the Almighty 
Father to commit this treasure to 



110 JIOBAL EVIL. 



eartlien vesels. iS'ot angels nor spirits 
could preach it so well as men. This I 
know, for God did actuall}' commission 
men to do his preaching, and not angels 
nor sj)iritS5 except temporarily. Even 
Jesus after his death did it not in per- 
son, but he bade men go into all the 
world and preach the gospel to every 
creature. 

4. The sinner in the abyss will, in 
fact, not be younger in sin, and hence 
more impressible ; on this ground, there- 
fore, we may not infer repentance as 
probable in the future state. If now 
the sinner withstands all the influences 
to repentance here, it is not probable 
that he would rej)ent should he have 
the offer made in the future state. It 
is a fact that he does resist all of 
"God's power for salvation-' here. 
This toe Jcnow. Therefore, our conclu- 
sion seems to be clearly a necessary 
one. Jesus said to the rich man, 
through Abraham, that if his brothers 



MOBAL EVIL, 111 



refused to hear Moses and the prophets 
they would not be persuaded though 
one should go to them from the dead. 
This is, to me, a decided indication 
that no better or mightier iniluences 
can be brought from the other side 
than are on this. 

It is sometimes held that the pains 
of perdition will certainly bring the re- 
bellious to terms ; that they will repent 
under the discipline of suffering. This 
I do not believe. It is contrary to all I 
know of the human and of the Divine 
natures to suppose that moral character, 
such as fits persons for heaven's bliss- 
ful society, can be whipped into men 
K^Y forced upon them. God says. Come 
unto me, only under circumstances 
where they may fairly exercise their 
unconstrained volition in choosing or 
refusing. Character under any other 
circumstances is an impossibility, and 
the attainment or the enjoyment of 
Heaven, except on the condition of 



112 MOBAL EVIL. 



CHARACTER, is not to be supposed a 
possible or even a desirable event. 

But I am free to admit that our falli- 
ble reason is not sufficient, of itself, for 
the satisfactory discussion and decision 
of this question. We must rely implic- 
itly upon the Word of God for our con- 
clusion. He who indulges in warm 
exhortation or fervid declamation, in 
speaking or writing on this question, 
does, it may be unwittingly, but never- 
theless really, confess that the Bible 
fails to speak to his satisfaction. Ex- 
hortation comes all right after demon- 
stration^ but before it or without it is a 
silly thing. This much I have said that 
we might be well settled in the conclu- 
sion that, in making up our verdict on 
the question before us, the Bible and 
the Bible alone, should be our guide, 
as in everything religious. To the law 
and to the testimony, then, let us go. 

I have said and perhaps shown that 
the wicked who die in their sins do not 



MOBAL EVIL. 113 



go immediately into Heaven; that if 
they are finally holy and happy their 
repentance and reformation must take 
place in the future state, as it certainly 
does not in this. I have shown that 
there is nothing incompatible with the 
character of God in his punishing the 
wicked severely or even eternally. I 
have also shown, I think, that in the 
light of unquestionable facts of human 
reason and experience, there is no ante- 
cedent presumption necessarily lying 
against the probability of severe future 
or even endless punishment. As, after 
death and after the judgment, the per- 
dition of impenitent sinners is certain, 
it behooves those who affirm that they 
will be ransomed from that place or 
condition to prove it. To be satisfac- 
tory the proof should be very full and 
clear; and as Grod only Tiuows the fate 
of the wicked after death, the proofs 
must be taken from his Word. 

8 



114 3I0BAL EVIL. 



1. I cite John 5: 1-29: 

"After this there was a feast of the 
Jews ; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep 
onarJcet^ a pool, which is called in the 
Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five 
porches. In these lay a great multitude 
of impotent folk, of blind, halt, wither- 
ed, waiting for the moving of the water. 
For an angel went down at a certain 
season into the pool and troubled the 
water: whosoever then first after the 
troubling of the water stepped in, was 
made whole of whatsoever disease he 
had. And a certain man was there, 
which had an infirmity thirty and eight 
vears. When Jesus saw him lie, and 
knew that he had been now a long time 
m that case, he said unto him. Wilt 
thou be made whole? The impotent 
man answered him. Sir, I have no man, 
when the water is troubled, to put me 
into the pool : but while I am coming, 
another steppeth down before me. 



MOBAL EVIL, 115 



Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up 
thy bed, and walk. And immediately 
the man was made whole, and took up 
his bed, and walked : and on the same 
day was the Sabbath. The Jews there- 
fore said unto him that was cured, It 
is the Sabbath-day: it is not lawful for 
thee to carry thy bed. He answered 
them, He that made me whole, the same 
said unto me, Take up thy bed and 
walk. Then asked they him. What 
man is that which said unto thee. Take 
up thy bed and walk? And he that 
was healed wist not who it was : for 
Jesus had conveyed himself away, a 
multitude being in that place. After- 
ward Jesus findeth him in the temple, 
and said unto him. Behold, thou art 
made whole : sin no more, lest a worse 
thing come unto thee. The man de- 
parted, and told the Jews that it was 
Jesus, which had made him whole. 
And therefore did the Jews persecute 
Jesus, and sought to slay him, because 



116 MOBAL EVIL. 



he had done these things on the Sab- 
bath-day. But Jesus answered them, 
My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work. Therefore the Jews sought the 
more to kill him, because he not only 
had broken the Sabbath, but said also 
that God was his Father, making him- 
self equal with God. Then answered 
Jesus and said unto them. Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, The Son can do nothing 
of himself, but what he seeth the 
Father do : for what things soever he 
doeth, these also doeth the Son like- 
wise. For the Father loveth the Son, 
and sheweth him all things that him- 
self doeth : and he will shew him great- 
er works 'than these, that ye may 
marvel. For as the Father raiseth up 
the dead, and quickeneth fhem ; even 
so the Son quickeneth whom he will. 
For the Father judge th no man, but 
hath committed all judgment unto the 
Son; that all men should honor the 
Son, even as they honor the Father. He 



MOBAL EVIL. 117 



that honoreth not the Son, honoreth 
not the Father which hath sent him. 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that 
heareth my word, and believeth on him 
that sent me, hath everlasting life, and 
shall not come into condemnation ; but 
is passed from death unto life. Verily, 
verily, I say unto you. The hour is 
coming, and now is, when the dead 
shall. hear the voice of the Son of God ; 
and they that hear shall live. For as 
the Father hath life in himself ; so hath 
he given to the Son to have life in him- 
self ; and hath given him authority to 
execute judgment also, because he is 
the Son of man. Marvel not at this : 
for the hour is coming, in the which all 
that are in the graves shall hear his 
voice, and shall come forth, they that 
have done good, unto the resurrection 
of life ; and they that have done evil, 
unto the resurrection of damnation." 

In this passage we have an account 
of an impotent man laid near the pool 



118 MOBAL EVIL. 



— Bethesda. On a Sabbath day Jesus 
passed by, and speaking kindly to liiniy 
said : Wilt tkou be made whole ? He 
replied, in substance, Yes. Jesus said r 
"Arise, take up thy bed and walk.'^ 
The Pharisees were oflFended at the man 
for carrying his bed on the Sabbath day, 
and at Jesus for telling him to do it. 
In the course of the conversation, 
Jesus said that his own Father had 
been working hitherto, and that now he 
was working. The Jews saw that he 
made himself a co-worker with God and 
that he claimed to be the Son of God. 
That Jesus should put himself on an 
equality with their God was to them in- 
tolerable. But Jesus proceeds to say 
to them that he would in their own 
time, and in their presence, raise the 
dead. In this they would see that men 
should honor the Son as they honor 
the Father. 

He then goes further and declares 
that the time would come " when all in 



MOBAL EVIL. 119 



the tombs shall hear his voice and come 
forth, they that have done good to the 
resurrection of life, they that have done 
evil to the resurrection of condemna- 
tion/' This shows that, 1. Those spok- 
en of were to be in their graves. 2. 
They were all to be raised. 3. Those 
who had been good would be raised to 
life. 4. Those who had been bad would 
be raised to condemnation. So, the 
wicked, after death, the grave and the 
resurrection, are to be condemned. 
They go not into life with the right- 
eous, but are condemned. The repent- 
ance, reformation and restoration of the 
wicked will be, if at all, after tliejwdg- 
ment. 

2. In Matt. 12: 31-32, we have an 
account of the sin against the Holy 
Spirit as follows : 

''Wherefore I say unto you. All 
manner of sin and blasphemy shall be 
forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost shall not be 



120 MOBAL EVIL. 



forgiven unto men. And whosoever 
speaketh a word against the Son of 
man, it shall be forgiven him : but 
whosoever speaketh against the Holy 
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this world, neither in the 
world to come." 

This is admitted to be a passage dif- 
ficult to interpret or explain to entire 
satisfaction. It is, however, for our 
present purpose, plain enough. There 
was such a sin as the Savior mention- 
ed, committed or liable to be commit- 
ted by men, else he could not have 
spoken as he did. He said of the sin- 
ner: "It shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this world nor in the world 
to come." If the word translated world 
in this passage signifies this life or the 
next life, respectively, then we have 
the whole question settled. Moral evil 
shall have no end. But if the Jewish 
and Christian ages, respectiv^ely, are 
meant, then the lesson is, the sin men- 



MOBAL EVIL. 121 

tioned shall not be forgiven in either. 
Now, I suppose if God could not see 
how to forgive this sin under either the 
type or the anti-type, the shadow or 
the substance, the Jewish or the Chris- 
tian dispensations, there is no reason 
to suppose that he could forgive it at 
all. If it is not possible to forgive this 
sin at all, it follows that its punish- 
ment is eternal ; or, moral evil shall 
have no end. 

Again; the 31st verse reads : ''Where- 
fore I say to you, all sins and blasphe- 
mies shall be forgiven to men, but the 
blasphemy of the Holy Spirit shall not 
be forgiven to men." This assertion, 
as it stands, seems to be a full, round, 
complete one, conveying a distinct and 
finished thought. The thought is that 
the sin mentioned '' shall not be for- 
given to men." If this be literally 
true, as I doubt not it is, then moral 
evil shall not end. As this verse is 
very plain, I suppose the correct inter- 



122 MOBAL EVIL, 



pretation of the one following would be^ 
in entire harmony with it. Omitting 
the former part of it, we read : " But 
whoever may speak against the Holy ^ 
Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him 
either in this age or in that which is to 
come." — Green. This is held by some 
to suggest that some sins are, probably, 
forgiven in the future state. If this 
were true, it would furnish no final dis- 
position of moral evil ; it could not end. 
But I submit : are not the expressions, 
'^ in this world (age) or the age to 
come," but a proverbial way of assert- 
ing with emphasis that it can " never y 
never '^^ happen? I incline decidedly 
to this view. If this be not the correct 
idea, it seems to me that the diflTerent 
parts of the Lord's statement of the 
case are not in harmony. We are not 
told why it is that this sin could not 
be forgiven. That is, no doubt, the 
reason why we do not know. Let us 
fear, lest an opportunity of entering- 



MOBAL EVIL. 123 

into the rest that remains for the peo- 
ple of God, having been given to us, 
any of us should fail to enter in. God 
*will have us enter in if he can. But, if 
we toill not^ then, he cannot. 

3. "When the Son of man shall 
come in his glory, and all the holy an- 
gels with him, then shall he sit upou 
the throne of his glory : and before 
him shall be gathered all nations ; and 
he shall separate them one from an- 
other, as a shepherd divideth Ms sheep 
from the goats : and he shall set the 
sheep on his right hand, but the goats 
on his left. Then shall the King say 
unto them on his right hand. Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world : for I was an hun- 
gred, and ye gave me meat: I was 
thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was 
a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, 
and ye clothed me : I w^as sick, and ye 
visited me : I was in prison, and ye 



124 MOBAL EVIL. 

came unto me. Then shall the right- 
eous answer him, saying, Lord, when 
saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? 
or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? When 
saw we thee a stranger, and took thee 
in ? or naked, and clothed theef Or, 
when saw we thee sick, or in prison, 
and came unto thee? And the King 
shall answer and say unto them. Verily 
I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of -the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 
Then shall he say unto them on his 
left hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, 
into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
devil and his angels : for I was an 
hungred, and ye gave me no meat : I 
was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : 
I was a stranger, and ye took me not 
in : naked, and ye clothed me not : sick, 
and in prison, and ye visited me not. 
Then shall they also answer him, say- 
ing. Lord, when saw we thee an hun- 
gred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, 



MOBAL EVIL, 125 



or sick, or in prison, and did not min- 
ister unto thee ? Then shall he answer 
them, saying. Verily I say unto you, 
Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the 
least of these, ye did it not to me. And 
these shall go away into everlasting 
punishment : but the righteous into 
life eternal." (Matt. 25 : 31-46.) 

In this passage we have a reference 
to the judgment scene. 1. The Son of 
man sits on his glorious throne. 2. All 
nations are gathered before him. 3. 
Jesus divides them into two classes, 
the righteous and the wicked. 4. To 
the righteous he will say, " Come, you 
blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world." 5. To the wicked 
he will say, " Depart from me, ye ac- 
cursed ones, into the eternal fire," etc. 
At verse 46 he says : '' And these shall 
go away into eternal punishment, but 
the righteous into eternal life." 

It is said by some that the word 



126 310 BAL EVIL. 



al<i)VLos^ in this passage, does not in 
every case mean eternal ; that it is 
sometimes applied to things of no great 
duration. 

The latter clause of this sentence is 
true. The word seems^ in some cases, 
to designate the idea of limited dura- 
tion. But the same may be said of the 
English words, eternal^ everlasting, etc. 
"We say of a man, he is an everlasting 
talker, he is always wrong, the fields 
are eternally fair. In such connections 
these words are pressed into special 
service and carry only a part of their 
current meaning. We do not infer in 
such cases that these words designate 
limited duration. Limitation, where 
it occurs at all, is indicated by words 
or matter in the context, and not by 
these words or any one of them. It is 
not strictly true that the English word 
everlasting or eternal, signifies or 
means limited duration, ever. It, as a 
word, does not. So of the Greek words 



MOBAL EVIL. 127 



<xt(ov and atwi/ots. They mean duration, 
and they suggest or intimate nothing of 
limitation in any case. All ideas of 
limitation come from other sources, not 
from these words in any place that I 
liave seen. Where there is no limiting 
^ord or circumstance in the connection 
the duration continues; it is eternal. 
It seems to me that the extent of 
meaning that belongs to the word atwi/toi/ 
{everlasting), in this verse, used to 
declare the length of the punishment to 
befall the wicked, is clear from the fact 
that the same word is employed to 
measure the duration of the life of the 
righteous in the everlasting kingdom of 
<Tod. The punishment of the wicked 
is said, in this verse, to be al^viov^ the 
life of the righteous is aiwnov, also. 
'These two statements are in the same 
verse and are clauses of the same sen- 
tence, and they stand in antithesis. If 
the punishment be limited, so is the 
life. But the life in this case is allow- 



128 MOBAL EVIL. 



ed to be endless ; so, then, must the 
punishment, qualified by the same term 
of duration, be endless also. The evi- 
dence of eternal punishment is precise- 
ly the same as that of eternal life. Let 
us be careful that we do not explain 
away heaven, eternal life, and the 
eternal years of Grod in our anxiety to 
discount the evidence for eternal pun- 
ishment. 

4. ''For if we sin wilfully after that 
we have received the knowledge of the 
truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice 
for sins, but a certain fearful looking 
for of judgment and fiery indignation, 
which shall devour the adversaries. He 
that despised Moses' law died without 
mercy under two or three witnesses : 
of how much sorer punishment, sup- 
pose ye, shall he be thought worthy, 
who hath trodden under foot the Son of 
God, and hath counted the blood of the 
covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, 
an unholy thing, and hath done despite 



MOBAL EVIL. 129 



unto the Spirit of grace ? For we know 
him that hath said, Vengeance belong- 
eth unto me, I will recompense, saith 
the Lord. And again, The Lord shall 
judge his people. It is a fearfal thing 
to fall into the hands of the living 
God." (Heb. 10: 26-31.) 

This passage seems to say that if 
one commit a certain sort of sin there 
is left in store no longer a sacrifice for 
sins, but a certain fearful looking for 
of judgment and fierceness of a fire that 
is to devour the adversaries. Of course 
some did, and still may, commit that 
sin, whatever it is, else Paul had not 
warned the Hebrews against it. 

For the remission of that sin there is 
no sacrifice ; and as there is no forgive- 
ness without a sacrifice, there is, for 
such an one, no forgiveness at all. 
And, as we have before shown that one 
who sins must be either punished or 
pardoned, and, since in this case there 
can be no forgiveness, it follows that 



130 MOBAL EVIL, 



the punishment cannot end. And as 
the punishment cannot end, moral evil 
shall not come to an end. 

But the divine writer continues 
further to say: "The one who despised 
Moses' law died without mercy on the 
testimony of two or three witnesses ; of 
how much sorer punishment shall he 
Tbe thought worthy who has trodden 
under foot the Soi^ of God and has 
counted the blood of the covenant, 
wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy 
thing, and hath done despite to the 
Spirit of grace ?" The Jew who despised 
Moses' law suffered as far as man can 
inflict punishment on the hody of his 
fellow, yet the one who commits this 
certain sin against the Son of God is 
declared to deserve a much sorer pun- 
ishment. This punishment is God's 
fiery indignation, and it should be 
looked for with much fearfulness by 
the sinner. The apostle adds these 
significant words : " It is a fearful thing 



MOBAL EVIL, 131 



to fall into the hands of the living 
God." 

Many think that, since God is so 
good, it is a good and safe thing to fall 
into his hands. So, indeed, it is if one 
be good. But in the case of the sinner 
it is a thing full of fearfulness. This 
manifestly extends the punishment of 
the sinner as far beyond all that may 
befall him in this life as Jesus is ex- 
alted above Moses in excellency, power 
and eternity. 

5. " And fear not them v^hich kill the 
body, but are not able to kill the soul : 
but rather fear him which is able to 
destroy both soul and body in hell." 
(Matt. 10: 28.) 

In this chapter Jesus gives us an 
account of his sending out his twelve 
apostles. He warned them of the dan- 
gers before them. They would be as 
sheep among wolves ; they should be 
hated of all men, or, of all classes of 
men, for his sake. They were to be 



132 MOBAL EVIL, 

brought before governors, judges and 
councils. Their own nearest of kin 
would be their enemies. These would 
deliver them ud to death, etc. In the 
face of all these things Jesus puts their 
duty before them and raises the ques- 
tion whether they would go forward 
and do right, or shrink from the dis- 
charge of duty on account of fear. He 
says in effect : If you would be con- 
trolled in your lives by your fears, if 
you could be drawn aside from the dis- 
charge of duty, on account of your 
fears, I will warn you of whom you. 
should be afraid, viz : " And be not 
afraid of those that kill the body, but 
are unable to kill the soul ; but rather 
fear him who is able to destroy both 
soul and body in Gehenna." Herein is 
pointed out the fate of those who are 
so afraid of men — of the world — that 
they do not serve God. Jesus declares 
that it is a much more fearful thing to 
fall into the hands of the living God, if 



MOBAL EVIL, 133 



one has lived an evil life, than is any- 
thing that men can do, even if they 
should kill you; for men can go no 
further than to take the life of the 
body ; but after this and beyond this, 
God can and will cast the soul and 
body of the sinner described into hell. 
This terrible end, made certain by the 
explicit language of Jesus, is not vqry 
assuring that God is too good to pun- 
ish the sinner severely, if not forever. 
Woe be to him who '^ with lies," 
^' strengthens the hands of the wicked 
that he should not return from his 
wicked ways, by promising him life," 
where God does not promise him life. 
Ezek. 13: 22. 

In 2 Thes. 1 : 6-10 Paul mentions the 
persecutions endured by the Thessalo- 
nians, and how faithful they were under 
them. He assures them that God knew 
all about these things and that he 
would certainly mete out to them and 



134 MOBAL EVIL. 



to their persecutors righteous retribu- 
tion, in due season. 

He says : " Seeing it is a righteous 
thing with God to recompense tribula- 
tion to them that trouble you. And to 
you who are troubled, rest with us, when 
the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from 
Heaven with his mighty angels, in 
flaming fire taking vengeance on them 
that know not God and that obey not 
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christy 
who shall be punished with everlasting 
destruction from the presence of the 
Lord and from the glory of his power^ 
when he shall come to be glorified in 
his saints and to be admired by all 
them that believe, in that day — be- 
cause our testimony among you was 
believed." Here Paul asserts that it is 
a righteous thing with God to recom- 
pense tribulation to those who distress- 
ed them. The easy-going at this dajr 
think, or at least say, that a righteous 
God cannot possibly punish the wick- 



MOBAL EVIL, 135 



ed, or, if at all, at least not severely, or 
if severely, the punishment will certain- 
ly have an end. 

The apostle asserts that the punish- 
ment herein denounced against the 
wicked would begin " at the revealing 
of Jesus Christ from Heaven with his 
mighty angels in flaming fire, awarding 
vengeance to those who know not God 
and to those who obey not the Gospel 
of our Lord Jesus." At the tenth verse 
he says this shall take place, ^'at that 
day." These statements of the apostle 
are not all true of any class of persons 
while in the flesh, and hence they refer 
to what shall be in the future life. 
Now, that there is punisJiment herein 
denounced against the wicked and that 
this punishment shall be in the future 
state are things unquestionable. The 
other question is as to the duration of 
it. On this point the apostle is as ex- 
plicit and unambiguous as he could 
possibly have been. If he had intend- 



136 MOBAL EVIL. 

ed to contradict Universalists and Res- 
torationists, he could not have done so 
more completely than he has in this 
passage. At least, I so think. He 
says : " Who shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the pres- 
ence of the Lord and from the glory of 
his power." 

No re-translation or exegesis of this 
passage can, I suppose, make it yield 
a meaning different from that which 
lies on the surface. From this, as from 
other passages examined, it seems to 
me clear that we have no grounds, laid 
in the Bible, to hope that moral evil 
will have an end. In speaking and 
writing on this subject, it is clear that 
quite a number of our pulpit people 
never find a text in the Bible to suit 
them. Their writings and speeches 
are not at all in accord with the ex- 
press order of the apostle Peter, which 
says : '' If any one speak, let him speak 
as the oracles of God." 



MOBAL EVIL. 137 



Paul says to Timothy: ''For the 
time will come when they will not en- 
dure sound teachings ; but after their 
own lusts will heap for themselves 
teachers, having itching ears ; and they 
will turn away their ears from the truth 
and shall be turned unto fables." That 
time has doubtless come long since 
and stuck with us closer than a brother. 

Sin has its birth in the heart as 
righteousness has. All men are con- 
stantly seeing opportunities for grati- 
fying, in unlawful ways, their carnal 
desires. Desire being begotten brings 
forth sin, and sin when it is finished 
brings forth death, says the Apostle 
James. When the desire for some un- 
lawful indulgence has risen high, the 
wish to have removed those restraints 
which God and good men have thrown 
around us to keep us in lawful bounds, 
grows strong. And who does not know 
that, when the loish is strong, the way 
to the conclusion we would have is 



138 MOBAL EVIL. 



easily found. Even the words of God 
are often shadowed by reason of our 
passions blinding us. This is true, not 
of a few erratic men only, but of all of 
us. Knowing how liable we are to be 
misled in this way, what amount of 
watching and praying we ought to do 
that we fall not ! 

These passages of the Word of God 
seem to leave no reasonable ground for 
doubt that those who die without hope 
may not hope to be restored or saved 
in the life to come. 



CHAPTER V. 

POST MORTEM GOSPEL. 

It is often asked : Are there not mer 
and women by the thousands who gc 
through this life and into eternity with- 
out knowing Jesus or his Gospel? 
What is their fate in the next world ? 
May they be saved, or must they be 
lost? Will they be judged by a law 
which they never knew nor could know? 
What of infants, idiots, etc., who are 
ignorant of the Gospel without any 
fault of theirs ? These all die, as they 
lived, ignorant of Jesus and his will, 
and for their ignorance they are not at 
fault. Must they or any of them be 
judged and condemned by a law which 
they did not and could not know ? I 
suppose not. One can hardly be re- 
sponsible for the violation of a law, of 
the existence and terms of which he 

(139) 



140 MOBAL EVIL, 



knew nothing and could have known 
nothing. One such cannot, in justice, 
be regarded as molating such a law, 
and is not a sinner in the eye of such a 
law. Nor do I believe that any of those 
under present consideration will be 
condemned for what is called "original 
sin." The Word of God does not men- 
tion the existence of such sin, and if it 
did, these parties could have no knowl- 
edge of the fact, and if they did really 
have such knowledge the fact would 
furnish no reason for their condemna- 
tion. It is not possible that, in a 
righteous government, any one person 
should be judged or punished for the 
act or sin of another. With this mere 
assertion I leave the statement at the 
bar of enlightened public opinion with 
no doubt as to the verdict. 

But, if these parties may not be con- 
demned by a law of which they knew 
and could have known nothing, may 
they be saved by the operation of such 



MOBAL EVIL, 141 



a law? I suppose not. [I would not 
be understood as holding that a soul is 
ever saved by the operation of law^ 
simply.] A law that pertains to the 
salvation of the soul can have no effect 
either way, that is, in condemning or 
justifying a soul that neither believes 
nor disbelieves it (unless that soul is 
culpable for its condition), and one who 
knows not of such a law can do neither. 
By the present hypothesis, the persons 
under review do not know the law of 
life, and may not be blamed for not 
knowing it; so, it seems to me, that if 
they are to be judged by the law of the 
new covenant that they should have 
and, therefore, will have a chance after 
death to hear, believe and embrace it. 
The question as to whether such an op- 
portunity will be given, and, if given, 
whether it would probably be accepted 
or not, is more fully discussed in 
another section. 

2. Possibly these parties may be 



142 MORAL EVIL, 

Tinder and shall be judged by another 
law to which, perhaps, Paul alludes in 
Homans 2 : 12-16 : 

''For as many as have sinned with- 
out law shall also perish without law: 
and as many as have sinned under law, 
shall be judged by law: (for not the 
hearers of the law ai^e just before 
God, but the doers of the law shall be 
justified. For when the Gentiles, which 
have not the law, do by nature the 
things contained in the law, these, 
liaving not the law, are a law unto 
themselves: which show the work of 
the law written in their hearts^ their 
conscience also bearing witness, and 
tlieir thoughts the mean while accusing, 
or else excusing, one another :) in the 
day when God shall judge the secrets 
of men by Jesus Christ, according to 
my gospel." 

If our clients are under the or a law, 
such as that to which we herein refer, 
we must try to be content with saying 



MOBAL EVIL. 143 



TDut little. We have not sufficient 
knowledge of it, the shadow of which 
is probably seen in this passage, to 
justify us in affirming very definitely 
what the results, under its operations, 
will be. 

But suppose all persons who die un- 
saved should have the Grospel preached 
to them after death, or that they or any 
of them are to be judged by some other 
rule or law, known or not by us, is it 
certain or even probable they would all 
be saved? that all would repent and 
turn to God, and thus put an end to 
moral evil? As before stated and 
argued at some length, God has done 
and is now doing everything that he 
can consistently do to destroy the 
works of the devil, and that under cir- 
cumstances as favorable as t\iQj can he 
made here, and as favorable as they 
<5an be hoped to be in Tiades^ and yet 
^in is a hideous factor in the civiliza- 



144 MOBAL EVIL. 



tion of the most favored peoples, and 
its shadow is not growing shorter. 

We are told that it is not reasonable 
to suppose that God would withhold 
from those who die without a chance 
to know and do the truth, the Gospel 
forever, and that '' such an outlook is 
not cut off by the Scriptures. We are 
thus at liberty to suppose that God's 
plan of recovering men by the motives 
of redemption, which we see in opera- 
tion here, may be continued in another 
world for those who are removed to it 
before they have been reached by these 
motives." If God's plan of recovering 
men, by the motives of redemption now 
in operation should be extended to 
those who are removed to another world 
before they have been reached by them, 
then, these motives of redemption 
should be continued before these per- 
sons until they are converted ; it being 
understood that they will certainly 
turn, all of them, sooner or later. Or, 



MOBAL EVIL. 145 



put it thus : As such an outlook is not 
cut off by the Scriptures, we may sup- 
pose that God will continue to press 
the motives of redemption upon the un- 
saved dead till all shall be saved. It 
is because of this feature of post mortem 
preaching and salvation that I am care- 
ful to notice the subject here ; for if 
this doctrine be true, our moral evil 
question is settled. It will end. 

Wow, suppose we should admit that 
God's Word does not cut off such out- 
look, which we do not, is it logically 
certain that we are, therefore, at liberty 
to indulge the hope of it ? Is the silence 
of God's Word, on this or on any other 
subject, our permission to believe any- 
thing? Are we certainly authorized to 
believe or do or hope anything, as we 
may choose or fancy, because the Word 
of God is silent on that point ? So far 
as the silence of the Scriptures is sug- 
gestive to us of God's will on any sub- 
ject, it points, rather, towards the con- 

10 



146 MOBAL EVIL, 



elusion that he does not wish us to 
know. 

God says, Deut. 29 : 29 : " The secret 
things belong unto the Lord our God ; 
but the things that are revealed belong 
unto us and to our children forever, 
that we may do all the words of this 
law." No one ought to be anxious to 
preach what God does, confessedly, not 
teach. Let one make a list of the things 
about which the Bible is silent and he 
will find himself quite liable to not be- 
lieve that the entire catalogue is worthy 
of acceptance. Of course, the silence 
of the Bible forces no conclusion upon 
us, only, perhaps, this : where God did 
not think it wise or good to speak to 
us, it may be wise in us not to speak. 
But, if the Bible is silent on any sub- 
ject, does not this fact leave the way 
open for us to gain information on that 
subject from other sources if we can? 
Certainly, I think so. The only logical 
inference that may be drawn from 



MOBAL EVIL, 147 



God's silence on this subject, if he is 
silent on it, is : he is silent. As above, 
a probable conclusion is that he does 
not wish us to know. 

If God submits the Gospel to many 
of our race who accept it and are saved 
and happy forever ; and if there be 
those who have not learned of its ex- 
istence, and for no fault of their own 
are not saved by the Gospel, it may be 
asked, does it not seem probable that 
God would in some way give them in. 
the future state further opportunity. 

The Judge of the whole earth will do 
right. God will decide the cases of 
men in or for the future state, as here, 
according to their deserts ; and in mak- 
ing up the judgment every circumstance 
legitimately belonging to the case will 
be fully and justly considered. Of this 
I feel certain. But, that post mortem 
Gospel preaching shall be thought ne- 
cessary to Divine fairness and justice 
in the adjudication of the cases of those 



148 MORAL EVIL, 

who die without God and without hope, 
is not forced upon me by the nature of 
God or the circumstances of men here 
or hereafter, as a logical conclusion. 

It is urged that they ought not to be 
consigned to hopeless perdition for not 
doing what they never knew to be their 
duty, and are not blameworthy for not 
knowing. To this I agree, and if this 
were the only alternative, our way to 
a satisfactory conclusion would be 
dark. But, as before suggested, may 
not all these persons, or classes of per- 
sons, be under the law of right, a knowl- 
edge of which every one may obtain 
from the light of nature, the light of 
reason and conscience to which, as be- 
fore said, Paul probably alludes in 
Rojnans 2:12: " For as many as have 
sinned without law, shall also perish 
without law: and as many as have 
sinned in the law, shall be judged by 
the law." Why not allow that they are 
to be tried by this law ? If it be said 



MOBAL EVIL, 149 



that its provisions are not quite so plain 
and fall as could be desired, my an- 
swer is : I suppose it is certain that 
God knows this fact, and that he can 
and will, with infinite wisdom, justice 
and mercy, adjust the final judgment 
to every case, to perfection, beyond the 
possibility or power of human or divine 
criticism. 

All this, it seems to me, is plain 
enough, and is certainly true ; but, right 
or wrong, the question : Will moral evil 
finally end? is not logically affected 
thereby. My apology for giving so 
much attention to this subject in this 
treatise is, because of its supposed 
bearing upon the final destiny of the 
wicked, or the question of the end of 
moral evil, by some of the advocates of 
the final holiness and happiness of all 
men. For this reason I shall pursue 
the investigation still further. 

3. Prof. Egbert C. Smyth, Co-Edi- 
tor of the Andover Review, in a schol- 



150 MOBAL EVIL, 



arly examination of " Probation After 
Death," says : " In this connection it is 
important to observe the widening of 
hope in the church concerning both 
classes of persons under consideration," 
t\i2it \^^ infants and heathen. This is, 
no doubt, an important point to be 
observed. One who has been wrest- 
ling and worrying with a conviction, or 
even fears or suspicions, that infants 
dying in infancy might be lost forever, 
ought to feel much better when he 
comes to see that God cannot possibly 
punish an unoffending infant, idiot or 
any such one who dies in that condition ; 
that God cannot punish the heathen 
for not believing in Jesus, whereas, it 
was never possible for them to believe. 
Yes, I should think that a person or 
people who had been under such a de- 
lusion, blighting and every way mis- 
leading as such a misconception of 
truth is, would " feel real good " when 
a widening, such as, "It is now com- 



MORAL EVIL, 151 



monly believed that all who die in 
infancy will be saved," had come. 
Snch a triumph of reason over the ig- 
norance and prejudice of the dark ages 
is good ground for rejoicing. The Pro- 
fessor is no doubt right in this. I 
should hardly call it a narrowing, that 
men with the Word of God in their 
hands should believe and hold that in- 
fants, so dying, are lost. I would call 
it ignorance or something worse. His 
Satanic majesty has wrought a great 
many curious mischiefs in the world, 
and this doctrine was (or is) one of them. 
The Professor does not limit the evi- 
dence of widening to the fact that in- 
fants dying in infancy are now suppos- 
ed to be saved. The heathen, he thinks, 
may be saved too, by having the Gos- 
pel preached to them in hades. And, 
then, the atonement is beginning to be 
or has come to be regarded as universal 
in its provisions. He says : '' The uni- 
versality of the atonement points to the 



152 MOBAL EVIL, 

same conclusion. It seems to be im- 
possible to think this doctrine out and 
suppose that the Divine purpose limits 
the possibility of its operation as a 
motive to a select few of our race." 

This is undoubtedly true. Again, 
" The final judgment of the entire race, 
by the Son of man, involves the same 
result." Now, what is the precise thing 
supposed to be logically involved in 
these, now held to be, unwersalities? 
It is, that the church is widening much 
beyond what it was, that it is growing 
broader, more liberal. Suppose it is, 
what of it ? This, I suppose, the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ may be expected to be 
preached to the lost, in hades. With 
not a few the widening is carried on 
and on, as a logical deduction from the 
same premises, and the Gospel is 
preached and pressed and r^-presented 
till the salvation of every one is secur- 
ed, they think. 

These extreme conclusions, which are 



MOBAL EVIL. 153 



not supported by any explicit or im- 
plicit word of God, are supposed to be 
justified by the fact of certain widen- 
ings which are thought to, logically, 
involve them. But it is hardly correct 
to think that because intelligent people 
liave, generally, come to have juster 
Tiews of God and of his Divine govern- 
ment, and especially have come to un- 
derstand the specific teachings of the 
]^ew Testament as touching the sub- 
jects of sin, the atonement, the standard 
of accountability, etc., and hence do 
not now, so much as formerly, outrage 
decent common sense and the plain let- 
ter of the Word of God in their creeds 
and tenets of religion, that, therefore, 
the dead who do not die in the Lord, 
will surely have the Gospel preached 
to them in the next world. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SPIRITS IIS" PRISO]^". 

But it is certain, I think, beyond all 
reasonable doubt, that no one knows or 
can know what the condition of one in 
the future world is or will be unless one 
who knows the hereafter in this respect 
should reveal it. And as no one but 
God can do this, it follows that unless 
he says to us that the Gospel will be 
preached to the unsaved dead in the 
next world, we may not believe it, and 
of course we must not preach it. 

This reasonable demand has not 
wholly escaped the notice of the advo- 
cates of the doctrine under considera- 
tion, and hence we read : 

''The Scriptural doctrine of the de- 
scent of Christ into Hades, and the ap- 
parently necessary logical implication 
of 1 Pet. 4 : 6, warrant an expectation 

(154) 



MOBAL EVIL, 155 



that tlie Gospel will be preached in the 
future world." 

1 Pet. 3: 19 and 4: 6 are by some 
supposed to be quite decisive proof of 
post mortem Gospel preaching and sal- 
vation. 

Let us first consider some things 
which these passages do not authorize 
us to believe ; secondly, let us try to 
see what their lesson is. 

1. 1 Pet. 3 : 19 certainly does not 
say^ unequivocally, that Jesus went in 
person or otherwise and preached the 
Gospel of salvation to any who were 
dead and in Hades at the time of the 
preaching. 

2. The Greek word in this passage,^ 
rendered preach, has no necessary ref- 
erence to the proclamation of " the Gos- 
pel." A proclamation was, indeed, 
made. What it was is not said ; and 
though it was made to spirits in prison, 
probably to some then in Hades, the 
passage does not say that it was made 



156 MOBAL EVIL. 



to them after their death. The language 
is quite as well, and much more in har- 
mony with general Bible truth, con- 
strued to mean that Jesus, in or by his 
Spirit, went and preached to the ante- 
diluvians, while the ark was being pre- 
pared, who, at the time Peter wrote were 
spirits in prison. This view is made 
more probable by the fact stated by 
2 Peter 2 : 5, that Noah was a 
"preacher of righteousness." God 
warned ]S"oah some time before the flood 
came that he would send it upon the 
world of ungodly people. Heb. 11 : 7. 
Noah preached to these, and it is fairly 
presumable that God sent him to preach 
to them. It is a safe presumption also, 
that the Spirit that spoke through him 
was the same Spirit of Christ that 
1 Pet. 1 : 11 says was in all the proph- 
ets and which spoke through them. 
This Jeslis is the rock that followed 
Israel in all their troubles. Noah had 
been warned of God, and hence had 



MOBAL EVIL.. 157 



communed with liim, concerning the 
fact and the cause of the impending 
ruin, and what his duty in the premises 
was. Among the things to which he 
was moved was the preaching of right- 
eousness. These points being made 
sure by the Word of God, is it not most 
reasonable to think that the Apostle 
Peter refers to them when he says of 
Jesus' own Divine Spirit by which he 
was quickened, he went and "preached 
to the spirits in prison ? " 

2. On the hypothesis that this 
preaching by Jesus Christ was done by 
him in person after his death, that it 
was done to the spirits in Hades, is it 
not strange that this greatest of all 
missionary tours, made by the Prince 
of all missionaries, was to only a few 
thousand persons — those drowned in 
the flood — and that all the other spir- 
its, numbered by millions, as needy 
and as deserving as these, were passed 
by ? If it should be held that, maybe, 



158 MOBAL EVIL, 



they were not neglected, the wonder 
still remains ; for it is certain that the 
drowned ones are named as having 
"been addressed, and all others go un- 
mentioned. If the Apostle Peter in- 
tended, in this passage, to announce 
that Jesus went to all the dead in Hades 
and preached the Gospel to them, he 
certainly failed of his purpose. Is it 
not probable that, if the apostle had 
intended to give hope and comfort to 
the then living, in regard to the dead, 
to the effect that they should have the 
Gospel preached to them in Hades if 
they had failed to accept it in this 
life, having had the offer here, that he 
would have plainly stated that fact? 
And then, to have made this plain 
statement of much weight or value to 
the living ones, for whose advantage 
he wrote, it seems to me he would have 
announced that, during the two or three 
days' meeting, so many converts were 
made and that Jesus left the mission in 



MOBAL EVIL, 159 

good^ efficient hands. On the hypoth- 
esis now in hand, it appears to me that 
the reason which caused Jesus to go in 
person and preach the Gospel to the 
spirits of tJiese dead ones in Hades 
would have caused him to preach it to 
all the dead there, and to continue to 
do so. Indeed, he should, on this 
theory, preach to all the unconverted 
living ones, also, and he must always 
have done so. Especially must he 
preach the Gospel to the heathen now 
and have done so in all the past. As 
he can preach it to all the heathen at 
the same time now as easily as he 
€Ould have preached in Hades to all the 
flood-drowned ones who lived in the 
days of Noah ; and as he would as cer- 
tainly do all this, and ever would, as 
that he went to the dead antediluvians 
and preached the Gospel to them, it 
seems to follow, according to our hy- 
pothesis, that he does now, always has 
and will forever, preach the Gospel to 



160 MOBAL EVIL. 



those in need of it. But in fact he does 
not, except through his men and women 
servants, preach to the heathen now, 
nor has he ever done so, else we should 
see some proof of it somewhere, some- 
time. This we not only do not see, but 
the fact of the entire want of evidence 
for the affirmative is proof conclusive 
for the negative. Hence, he did not 
then and does not now preach to the 
spirits in prison — to the dead after 
death, nor to the heathen. The many 
thousands of missionaries in heathen 
lands and millions of money annually 
spent to have the Gospel preached to 
the heathen are a mighty protest 
against this theory. 

WHAT THE PASSAGE MEAISTS. 

It seems to me that the apostle wrote 
to, "elect pilgrims of dispersion, of 
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and 
Bithynia," in order to instruct, strength- 
en and encourage to faithful holding 



MOBAL EVIL, 161 

out, those who were unhappily sur- 
rounded, who were, probably, suffering 
severe persecutions, and possibly, in 
many cases, death on account of their 
profession, and were, therefore in great 
danger of falling away. That this 
view is well sustained by the Epistle 
itself is seen if we read the following 
in their connections : 1 Pet. 1 : 6, 7 ; 
3: 14, 17, 18; 4: 1, 2, 16, 17 and 5: 
8-10, etc. 

In these passages the apostle teaches 
them that they should be careful to be 
in the right, that those in the line of 
duty to God and their fellows were 
safest. Not that those in the right 
should, in no case, suffer wrongfully at 
the hands of wicked, unreasonable 
men ; still, in the long run, to do right 
is the best policy. 

He exhorts them to be intelligent so 

as to be able to give, to every one who 

might ask them questions concerning 

their faith, a reason for their hope, 
n 



162 MOBAL EVIL. 



Heason underlies faith, faith is the 
ground of hope, and hope is essential to 
steadfastness to the end, especially 
when in the midst of persecutions. 
This golden chain of heavenly truth 
must not be broken ; it must have no 
'' missing link," else ruin must ensue. 
To maintain their Christian integrity 
was their duty to God, and their safest 
course among men. In thus living they 
would have good consciences and 
would, therefore, make manifest such 
uprightness and purity of life that those 
who accused them falsely or, persecuted 
them wrongfully might be ashamed. 

Every malefactor, when he comes to 
see that he has wronged a good, pure 
person, is sure to be conscience-smitten, 
and hence ashamed, (see 3 : 11-16). 
But after all possible faithfulness, it 
sometimes comes to pass that a man of 
God suffers persecution. The apostle 
adds, that if they must suffer, it is bet- 
ter that it should be for well doing than 



MOBAL EVIL, 163 



for evil doing, because, 1. They would 
in that case have a good conscience; 
2. They would have the best possible 
ground of hope to escape suffering ; 3. 
They would thus secure to themselves 
God's approval, good providences and 
blessings here, and their eternal salva- 
tion hereafter. 

Then, to nerve them for the worst, if 
the worst must come, he says, verse 18: 
^' Because even Christ suffered once on 
account of sins, a righteous for unright- 
eous ones, that he might bring us to 
Crod." So, even if they were righteous 
and should suffer in a good cause, they 
were, in this respect like the Master. 
He suffered for sins which were not his 
own ; nor did he shrink from the trial, 
for, though perfectly innocent, he would 
and did, for the sake of others who 
were sinners, give his life. He suffer- 
ed wTiolly on their account. Now, they 
ought not, if need be they should suffer, 
to faint, or fall out by the way. There 



164 MOBAL EVIL. 



is no influence greater over a man than 
that exerted by one who dies for him. 
There is no other argument for keep- 
ing these suffering pilgrim disciples 
in the way of the Lord to the end, 
so likely to be effective as the one here 
used. They were challenged by all 
the agonies of the cross to stand firm, 
unmovable, though called to suffer the 
extremest pains in the cause of their 
Lord. The apostle tells how, and how 
much. He suffered for them, a just for 
unjust ones, in these words: "Having 
been, indeed, put to death in flesh, but 
quickened in spirit." This signifles, I 
suppose, that in regard to his flesh he 
died, truly, but in respect to his Divine 
Spirit (or self) he made himself alive. 
See John 10 : 18, where Jesus, speaking 
of his life, says : " I have power to lay 
down my life and I have power to take 
it again," etc. They were then cited 
to an example of this Spirit's work. 
He says, as I understand him, that this 



MOBAL EVIL, 165 



same Christ in or by his Spirit went, in 
the days of ISToah, while the ark was 
being prepared, and preached to that 
disobedient people. It was Christ who 
preached to them through Nbah. The 
long-suffering of God was put to the 
test. He waited on them as long as 
the Divine philanthropy could possibly 
wait; Noah, or the Spirit of Christ 
which was in him, was, meantime, 
preaching to them and warning them 
to repent, as he told them of coming 
ruin. No doubt but that wicked peo- 
ple derided, scoffed at and persecuted 
righteous Noah from day to day, as a 
like people did righteous Lot in Sodom, 
*' vexing his righteous soul daily." 
Still God remembered Noah. Though 
he suffered at the hands of wicked men, 
God was with him, and in the end 
saved him and his. This very Spirit 
that had charge of the case of Noah 
and his persecutors, and who saved the 
one and destroyed the other, has your 



166 MOBAL EVIL. 



case, says Peter, in his hands. He will 
save you and he will destroy them. 
But Peter tells them, that as God was 
long-suffering then, not willing that any 
one should perish, but anxious that all 
might turn and be saved, so now he is 
suffering long, these wicked men, wha 
were persecuting, in order that they 
should have every chance possible for 
being saved. Yet God remembers the 
cries of his children ; he will save them 
and destroy their enemies. 

He alludes to their salvation from 
sin through Jesus Christ as having, in 
some respect, a parallel in the salva- 
tion of ISToah and his family through 
water. Now, as Noah, who suffered 
long for a wicked, persecuting people 
and preached to them all the while, 
was saved gloriously by the hand of 
God, so Jesus Christ, who suffered long 
for sinners, "is now on the right hand 
of God, leaving gone into heaven." 1 
Pet. 3 : 22. 



MOBAL EVIL. 167 



In the first of the fourth chapter he 
makes the application of his argument 
to 'them. He says : " For as much, then, 
as Christ suffered in flesh, arm your- 
selves also with the same mind." That 
is, nerve yourselves to the duty of 
suffering, if need be, as Christ your 
Savior suffered for you. Thus Christ's 
sufferings for them is offered as a stim- 
ulant to induce them to gird up the 
loins of their minds that they might be 
able to endure hardness as good sol- 
diers, even to the bitter end. 

Again he says : " For he that has 
suffered in flesh (has died) has ceased 
fronl sin." That is, as one who has 
died is beyond the reach of sinful men, 
so he who has died to sin ought not to 
live the time remaining of his life in 
the flesh according to the lusts of men, 
but according to the will of God. For 
their lives, up to the time of their death 
to sin, should be considered enough in 
the practice of wickedness, etc., see 



168 MOBAL EVIL. 

i 



verses 3, 4. The apostle, then, speaking 
of their wicked persecutors, says : 
" Who shall give account to him that 
is ready to judge the quick and the 
dead?" Thus he brings the parties to 
the judgment day that they might re- 
ceive their deserts according to their 
deeds done in the body (verse 6). ''For, 
for this purpose was the Gospel preach- 
ed even to the dead, that they might, 
indeed, be judged according to men in 
flesh, but live according to God in the 
spirit." 

This verse has justly been regarded 
as of difficult interpretation. It might 
signify that the Gospel was preached 
to the literally dead before they died, 
or to them after they died, or that it 
was preached to the spiritually dead 
while they were in the flesh. And 
again, the clauses, "might indeed be 
judged according to men in flesh," 
" but live according to God in spirit," 
are not at all free from obscurity. But, 



MORAL EVIL. 169 



remembering that the apostle's object 
was to encourage and strengthen those 
who were liable to fall, some of whom 
were no doubt then falling away on 
account of severe persecutions, with 
which hypothesis the interpretation of 
this verse must harmonize, his meaning 
may, I think, be gotten to a high de- 
gree of probability. '' Was preached 
even to the dead." I suppose the apos- 
tle refers to those who were at that 
time literally dead; some of whom 
had died at the hands of their wicked 
persecutors, no doubt, and who were, 
therefore, examples of the most that 
wicked men could do against God's 
suffering children. One object of the 
Gospel's being preached to them was 
to confirm them in the faith, so that, 
though they should be judged, accord- 
ing to the will of men under the domin- 
ion of the flesh, to be worthy of death, 
yet that they should live according to 
the will of God in spirit. Men who 



170 MOBAL EVIL. 



had suffered death at the hands of 
wicked ones, and had endured to the 
end, were examples of what the preach- 
ing of the Gospel could do in inducing 
the disciples to live according to the 
will of God, in spirit. Those address- 
ed had, no doubt, seen many examples 
of heroic suffering, and even death, who 
endured as seeing him who is invisible; 
who, like the ancients, '' saw the prom- 
ises afar off and embraced them and. 
confessed that they were strangers and 
pilgrims on the earth ; who, like Moses, 
chose rather to suffer aflliction with the 
people of God than to enjoy the pleas- 
ures of sin for a season, ^esteeming the 
reproach of Christ greater riches," etc. 
See now how, in harmony with the 
view I have here submitted, the apostle 
closed his argument and exhortation 
with them. Read from 5 : 6-11, viz : 
" Humble yourselves therefore under 
the mighty hand of God, that he may 
exalt you in due time ; casting all your 



3I0BAL EVIL. 171 



anxiety upon him, because he cares for 
you. Be sober, be watchful : your ad- 
versary, the devil, as a roaring lion, 
walketh about seeking whom he may 
devour: whom withstand steadfast in 
your faith, knowing that the same suf- 
ferings are being accomplished in your 
brethren who are in the world. And 
the God of all grace, who called you. 
unto his eternal glory in Christ, after 
that you have suffered a little while, 
shall himself perfect, establish, 
strengthen you. To him be the do- 
minion forever and ever. Amen." 

On the hypothesis that the Gospel 
was preached to those who were liter- 
ally dead at the time the preaching 
was done, 1. It is not apparent to me 
why the apostle did not plainly say so, 
which he did not do. 2. I do not see 
what great present help such preach- 
ing would have been to those living,^ 
suffering ones, whom the apostle was 
addressing. If it be said that the 



172 MOBAL EVIL. 



promise of having the Gospel preached 
to one in the future world, if only he 
should be about to conclude not to 
obey it in this, would be a source of 
consolation and strength, my reply is : 
it is impossible that it could he so. No 
one can, in sincerity, comfort himself 
with the idea that he will enjoy his life 
of sinning, on and on for some years, 
with the honest purpose that at some 
future time he would truly repent of all 
his sins, this one of delaying to do 
right, included. Equally impossible is 
it that one can be nerved or assisted to 
hold out faithful, under persecutions, 
by the promise of having the Gospel 
preached to him after death. The in- 
fluence of such a proposal would, it 
seems to me, be quite the other way. 

If, now, the Scriptures do not hold 
out the prospect that those who are 
not converted in this life will be evan- 
gelized in the next, it is obvious that 
there is no such hope set before us ; and 



MOBAL EVIL, 173 



if there be no such hope, then we may 
not expect that " moral evil " will have 
an end in that way. 



CHAPTER YII. 

THE WILL AS A FACTOR. 

Iisr the calculation to determine 
whether any given man or whether all 
men will be saved or not, there has not 
been consideration enough allowed for 
the factor — the human will. So far as 
I have been able to see, this factor is 
beyond the control of any and all out- 
side parties and, therefore, nothing 
definite can be asserted, by any person, 
with perfect certainty, as to what one 
will do in any given case. It is cer- 
tain that no man can forecast, with 
certainty, what another will do in the 
future. It is equally true that great 
numbers of persons are, everywhere 
and always, defying the counsels of 
God during their entire lives ; and I do 
not see but that they may as probably 
continue to do so " to all eternity " as 

. (174) 



MOBAL EVIL. 175 



that they certainly do so here and now. 

There was a time, not long past, when 
Tery learned, wise and good men be- 
lieved that God did all in the salvation 
of the soul ; that man had no important 
or necessary thing or part to perform ; 
that doing, on the sinner's part, is a 
deadly thing; that God can save any 
«oul that he wishes to save, whenever 
lie wishes to save it. Hence, in meet- 
ings held with special reference to the 
conversion of sinners, a large part of 
the exercises consisted in efforts made 
to induce God to "save these souls, 
nowy 

It seems to me the better view is, 
that God can save no soul from sin or 
death except as that soul may, of its 
own volition, decide for salvation, and 
that in inducing that soul to decide for 
salvation or eternal life neither God 
nor man can employ any force except 
that of moral suasion. Th^t is, after 
the reason, the motives and the author- 



176 MOBAL EVIL. 



ity of God in tlieir fullness have been 
exhausted to turn the sinner, he may 
still not be turned, and, often he is not 
turned. No forces other or beyond 
these can be employed for the purpose, 
and these forces often fail to accom- 
plish the object. Why is this? It will 
not do to say that it is because, though 
God could have done more than he has, 
he would not. 

The will of God, as 'to the salvation 
of men, is not limited. Reason so teach- 
es and God so declares. Jesus says: 
" You will not come to me that ye might 
have life." God says : " Because I have 
called and ye refused." " Who wills 
that all men be saved and come to an 
acquaintance with truth." It is in these 
passages and in many others made 
clear that God's loill for salvation is 
limitless. 

2. But the power of God for salva- 
tion is limited. Whenever God comes 
to the door of one's soul to convert it or 



MOBAL EVIL. 177 



to bestow any blessing upon it, what- 
ever, he is compelled to JcnocJc for ad- 
mission, to ask permission to enter; 
otherwise he is barred out, it may be 
barred out forever. If he should break 
in upon the soul, " whether or not," m 
et armis^ it would be because he is not 
God or because man is not man ; that 
is, God, in that case, would deny him- 
self, a thing which he says he cannot 
do. 

The preacher's business, in the mat- 
ter of converting the sinner, is : to rea- 
son with him in order that he may be- 
lieve, to speak to his heart that he may 
repent, and to command him in the 
name of the Lord Jesus to obey him 
whom he believes and loves ; that is to 
submit his will to the will of God, 
formally. 

In all places, and at all times, where 
the Gospel and a Gospel ministry are, 
the work of trying to save men is being 
attempted. In some cases attempts 

12 



178 MOBAL EVIL. 



are successful, in many they are fail- 
ures. Why these failures? It is cer- 
tainly not because man's power is 
greater than God's. Nor is it because 
the will of man is mightier than the 
will of God. It is because God chose, 
in the creation of man, to make him 
with a will that might successfully set 
at naught the will of God. It is this, 
especially, that makes man like God — 
in his image ; it is this, especially, that 
characterizes man as such. God is 
omnipotent over matter; over mind, 
heart, will, he is not. 

If God could convert a sinner simply 
because he wished to, then all sinners 
will be saved, and that as soon as God 
wishes to save them. And, as God 
wishes to save all sinners, and wishes 
to save them now, it follows that he 
does save them now. They are now 
saved. This sweeping conclusion in- 
cludes not only all sinners now on the 
earth, but all that have been on it and 



MOBAL EVIL. 179 



that may yet be on it. Nay, it must 
include not only the living but the 
dead also. On this hypothesis, moral 
evil must come to an end. This is 
about intuitively certain. 

Not only is it true, on the hypothe- 
sis that God can, and therefore will, 
save all persons always, that moral 
evil will have an end, but it follows 
also, for tlie same reason^ that moral 
evil could never have begun. But, in 
fact, it did begin. Hence the hypoth- 
esis is false. Again, if God will cer- 
tainly save all sinners, and thus put an 
•end to moral evil, I do not see but that 
he must needs do so as soon as the sin- 
ner is a sinner. Why not ? Why 
wait ? If it be suggested that the sin- 
ner's opposition to God might operate 
as a hindranc.e, my reply would be : 
the hypothesis is, the sinner is not able 
to withstand God, and he is least able 
to do so at the beginning of his life of 
sin. So, on the theory of God's saving 



180 MOBAL EVIL. 

any one in this world or the next by 
the nse of any means or force other 
than such as he nses here and now, I 
think he would and must employ such 
and all of such forces, not only here in 
this world, but he must have done so 
the moment that sin was born, and 
crushed it at once. But he did not do 
this. Sin is here. Yes, millions of 
aching, bleeding, breaking hearts pro- 
claim the solemn, awful reality. 

God- has ever been opposed to sin. 
He has expressed his disapprobation of 
it so often and so distinctly that there 
is no room left for doubt. From the 
opening act in the drama of sin's dread- 
ful desolations among men to the final, 
'' depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire prepared for the. devil and 
his angels," he adopted every word 
and employed every means possible in 
order to make manifest his uncom- 
promising, irreconcilable opposition to 
sin. We have, in this panorama, a 



MOBAL EVIL. 181 



Yiew of sin for nearly six thousand 
years, and of God's dealings with sin- 
ners. His displeasure against it has 
had expressions of such marvelous em- 
phasis as to leave no room to doubt 
but that God has done, is now doing 
and will ever do all Tie can to put an 
end to moral evil. 

He has not converted all sinners ; he 
has not made an end of sinning, for the 
reason I suppose, that he could not 
consistently do so; and what he can 
not consistently do, he can not do at 
all. The impassable barrier between 
God and the accomplishment of the 
salvation of men is the human will. 
Now, if we reason from what we know 
to ascertain what we do not know, the 
ground for believing that God will put 
an end to moral evil is not quite clear. 
It seems to me that the commission and 
the remission of sin are and should be 
placed upon the same ground. If sin 
is committed by him only who is will- 



182 MOBAL EVIL. 



ing to sin ; so sin is blotted out for 
him only who is willing to have it so. 
ITo power in Heaven, earth or perdition 
can cause or remove a sin without the 
consent of the will. In the face of this 
patent truth we read the reason why 
sin has an existence, and also why we* 
may not prophesy, with any reasona- 
able certainty, that it will have an end. 



CHAPTER yill. 

TENDENCIES. 

Whoever has carefully noted the 
tendencies or currents in the formation 
of character has observed that sinning 
is, at first, comparatively embarrassing 
and difficult; but, by oft repetition 
or long indulgence it becomes easier of 
performance, and to break away from 
it grows harder and harder. Accord- 
ing to the law of habit, known to near- 
ly everybody, it is certain that the evil 
doer who persists in his course of sin 
is constantly approaching a point be- 
yond which he will have no power or 
even inclination to change. A great 
poet saw this and put it into verse, as 
follows : 

'*yice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen: 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
(183) 



184 MOBAL EVIL, 



Grod lias, himself, spoken witli much 
plainness and great power on this sub- 
ject. See 1 Tim. 2 : 4, where Paul 
pictures the effect of departing from 
the faith, of giving heed to seducing 
spirits and doctrines of demons. They 
come, he says, to speak lies in hypo- 
crisy and are seared in their conscience 
as with a hot iron. This shows how, 
beyond or nearly beyond the reach of 
moral suasion, those persons had^one. 
True, the apostle's purpose was to point 
out the cause of their ruin that others 
might fear. But the lesson in what he 
says is none the less clear and conclu- 
sive on that account. The same lesson 
is, I suppose, seen at Eph. 4: 17-19, 
where the apostle says of the Gentiles, 
that they "walk in the vanity of their 
mind, being darkened in their under- 
standing, alienated from the life of God 
because of the ignorance that is in them, 
because of the hardening of their heart ; 
who being past feeling, gave themselves 



MOBAL EVIL, 185 



up to lasciviousnesss to work all un- 
cleanness with greediness." This is a 
terrible record. It shows that those 
who had gained such an eminence of 
infamy as they had were past a " feel- 
ing sense " of their moral accountability 
to God. This being the case, the pos- 
sibility of their fin-al salvation was not 
at all probable, if it was not intended 
to substantially say it was impossible. 
If it was impossible, then moral evil 
will not, can not end. The impossibil- 
ity of their being made to turn away 
from their sinning is suggested by the 
phrase, '' past feeling." Moral sensibil- 
ity was, in their case, gone. The sleep 
of moral death, that knows no waking, 
was upon them. Therefore they could 
not be renewed to repentance, and so 
moral evil does not end. I suppose God 
would be entirely willing to save them, 
if only they could and would come to 
repentance. But as repentance is im- 
possible, so moral evil cannot end. 



186 MOBAL EVIL, 

God, in Hosea 4 : 17, seems to refer to 
Ephraim as so far gone in idolatry that 
liis recovery was impossible, and there- 
fore, he says, '' Let him alone." 

It is frequently the case that habits 
become so fixed that they cannot be 
changed. If this be true of the sinner^ 
as I have said and tried to show, and 
as the Scriptures seem to teach ; that 
is, that beyond a certain point it is not 
possible for him who has passed that 
point to repent, then, since if he does 
not repent his unhappiness must con- 
tinue, it follows that moral evil may^ 
not be expected to end. 

Though the sinner, unless he is 
pardoned, must suffer the full penalty 
of his sins, yet, says one, no penalty for 
a sin or sins committed by a finite 
being can have an endless duration. 
That is, it is held that no offense per- 
petrated by man deserves endless pun- 
ishment ; and, as God would not allow 
punishment to exceed, in duration or 



MOBAL EVIL. 187 



severity, the deserts of the sinner, so, 
moral evil must come to an end. 

Observe, on this theory of closing out 
moral evil, the evil doer is supposed to 
pay off, in suffering, the amount due 
for his sins. All debts being canceled, 
of course moral evil ceases. I have no 
reason to think, and there is no law 
going to show, that in God's court any 
amount of suffering compensate, for a 
corresponding sum of sin. No moral 
science known to me adopts Ihe princi- 
ple as sound in morals, and it is cer- 
tainly not sound. 

But, suppose the hypothesis, that so 
much suffering squares the account 
against the sinner for so much sinning, 
should be' adnjitted, the question yet 
remains : How much suffering is re- 
quired to satisfy the claims of justice 
in case of sin ? Here 7)ian should be 
slow to speak. The wisest angel about 
the throne of God is, I suppose, hardly 
competent t(^ speak with any degree of 



188 MOBAL EVIL, 

certainty on this question. The one 
who drops a pebble into the ocean may 
see the ripple start, but he knows not 
the end; he does not, he cannot see to 
the limits, in time or space, of the phys- 
ical effect of his act, if it has limits. 
The probabilities are that the act is, in 
Its effects, eternal, unless God should, 
in the use of his omnipotent power, to 
that end so rule as to close out the 
effects. Certainly man cannot inter- 
pose to stop the consequences, nor can 
he know the end. May it not possibly 
be that a sin, even as a pebble, shall 
start a wave of moral evil tliat shall 
lash the shores of shoreless, endless 
eternity? While I do not feel compe- 
tent to speak dogmatically or oracular- 
ly of the infinite and incomprehensible, 
still I believe that enough on this sub- 
ject lies on this side of the line mark- 
ing the limits of religious thought to 
justify me in saying that the effects of 
sin are eternal, unless God^ should stop 



MOBAL EVIL. 189 



them by blotting them out, or forgiving 
the sinner; and this even God could 
not do, unless the sinner should first 
repent. 

If the effects of a sinner's acts are 
eternal, as already said, is it not reason 
to suppose that the effect on the sinner 
himself is, like all the other effects of 
his acts, endless ? I do not insist that 
the effects in such cases as we are con- 
sidering are of the nature of punish- 
ment. They may be only a logical fol- 
lowing or necessary sequence of effects 
upon causes. But, however this may 
be, our conclusion that moral evil does, 
probably, not end, follows. 

2. But suppose the hypothesis in 
the foregoing section is incorrect. Sup- 
pose the consequences, to the sinner, of 
his deeds are not to be meted out to 
him on the principle of so much suffer- 
ing for so much sin, but on the ground, 
rather, that after so much suffering, of 
the quantity of which necessary to 



190 MOBAL EVIL. 



meet the demands of right in the case 
God only knows anything, the sinner 
will be well affected to such an extent 
that God sees that the effect, unhappy 
to the sinner, ought to cease, it will 
then cease. Thus, or somewhat thus, 
it is thought, or hoped, or imagined 
that moral evil will have an end. In 
this view of the case, it is not held that 
the sinner pays off his debt in suffering, 
but that God forgives him somewhat 
for some reason, and thus moral evil, or 
a balance of it after a while of suffer- 
ing, is canceled, ends. But, does any 
one know that such reason will exist 
as to every one who shall go into the 
unseen unforgiven, as we know thous- 
ands do? If it should fail as to even 
one, then, moral evil may not, does not 
cease. No one knows certainly that, 
in fact, every one will be finally for- 
given ; the Bible does not say such 
will be the case, nor is it, as I see things, 
probable that the unrighteous dead will 



MOBAL EVIL, 191 



furnish the opportunity or reasons, on 
which God can save all. Of course, 
God cannot save one here or hereafter 
unless he is brought to repentance. 
"Whether there shall be influences in 
the next world sufficient to bring all 
those to repentance who could not be 
reclaimed by God's power for salvation 
in this life is more fully considered in 
a former chapter. 



CHAPTER IX. 

COJS-CLUSIOIS". 

No ONE is, in this life, entirely sat- 
isfied with himself. No one, nothing, 
fully comprehends itself. One among 
the wisest of the Greeks said : " Know 
thyself," yet no one has ever succeeded 
fully in doing so. The achievements 
of learned men have been marvelous. 
Guided by reason man has traveled 
with the planets and comets ; he has 
weighed and measured them, has 
counted and mapped them out, and set 
down and contemplated his task per- 
formed. He has brought some of the 
planets to his very door, as it were, 
and contemplated them as familiar ac- 
quaintances. By the aid of scientific 
instruments, Jiis own inventions, he has 
reached for realms beyond, and in re- 
gard to many questions his conclu- 

(192) 



MOBAL EVIL, 193 

sions reached have been very comfort- 
ing and also very v^onderful. But as 
on he goes in space till miles are num- 
bered by billions, his vision becomes 
dim, his reason trembles and totters, 
and as he is being lost amid the mazes 
and wonders of God's boundless uni- 
verse of universes, he is led, he is 
forced to exclaim, '' O, the depth of the 
riches both of the wisdom and the 
knowledge of God ! How unsearchable 
are his judgments, and his ways past 
tracing out !" 

The wonders of God's works are not 
all above us. As the man of science, 
with his torch-lights, his inspiration 
and apparatus, proceeds downwards, 
revelations of God attesting his wis- 
dom and power confront him every- 
where. In these revelations, as in 
those from above him, God is made 
manifest. "The heavens declare the 
glory of God," and the earth is full of 
his glory. No one, it seems to me, can 

13 



194 MOBAL EVIL. 

feel SO worshipful as the truly Chris- 
tian scientist. He confronts and recog- 
nizes the mysterious, the marvelous, 
the miraculous at every step he takes 
in his investigations, upwards, down- 
wards, on all sides, within and with- 
out. Right logically and right rever- 
ently he says : 

** There is a God, the whole creation cries; 
Supremely great, superlatively wise, 
Beyond conception, holy, good and just. 
Remember this, ye children of the dust." 

In the beginning God said to our 
parents, Adam and Eve, take the earth 
with its tenantry, rule over it, subdue 
it. With his scientific lamp man has 
searched Nature's mysteries, has 
sought to know all of God's wonders. 
In a large degree he has found. 

Where he failed to find to his satis- 
faction he has not surrendered, he has 
refused to stop. He is now knocking 
at the gates near to the North and 
South poles. At the uttermost point of 



MOBAL EVIL. 195 

Tenture yet reached, he stands gazing 
and proposing no retreat. He thinks 
of flying through the air to the pole, of 
diving under the icebergs, or of plow- 
ing his way on the surface. " To the 
pole," is his watchword and he will not 
surrender. See the pole he is deter- 
mined; ''he must.^^ This barrier in 
nature to his progress, he is resolved to 
remove, or surmount, or subdue. 

He already speaks his ''Good morn- 
ing^'^ to his brother man thousands of 
miles away in an instant of time. He 
tried walking, horse-back riding, sta- 
ging, sieam-boating, and finally rail- 
roading. He is not satisfied ; he must 
fly, and fly he will. 

But man, like the ocean, has his 
iDoundary ; thus far he may go, but not 
further, says nature, says Grod. It is 
about axiomatic that without certain 
data certain conclusions may not be 
reached. There are many places in 
and on the earth that we cannot see, 



196 MOBAL EVIL. 



because we have no adequate means of 
reaching them. So there are many- 
things in nature^ terrestrial, supernal 
and infernal, that we may not hope to 
understand, from the fact that we have 
not the data necessary to reach a con- 
clusion. 

It has, no doubt, been observed that 
all persons who are skeptical in re- 
spect to the Christian religion have 
stumbled at the supernatural. The as- 
serted or implied ground of this fact is 
that the skeptic, not being able to see 
the ground of the fact claimed to be 
supernatural, is bound to reject the 
fact as such, or to deny the character of 
the asserted fact. The suppressed 
major premise in this case is : Every 
thing for which my reason does not 
comprehend the grounds, including the 
Wliat^ and the How and the Why^ is to 
be rejected. 

But this view is absurd. Food makes 
muscle, bone, flesh, hair, skin, nails, 



MOBAL EVIL. 197 



etc. We know these things are facts, 
but we do not, we cannot understand 
all of the how and the why of them. 
Water slakes thirst. This is a fact, 
and it is understood as a fact by the 
plainest mind. But who understands 
fully the how and the why of it ? 

The skeptic accepts the Bible as a 
historical book, only he does not be- 
lieve the '' fish story," that the sun 
stood ''still upon Gibeon; and thou 
moon in the valley of Ajalon," nor that 
Jesus of N^azareth had a miraculous 
conception. But why does he not ac- 
cept these statements of the Bible as 
readily as others as facts? Simply 
because he does not understand the 
how and the why of these -asserted 
facts. But, as before said, the moment 
one states in full the major premise of 
this conclusion, the absurdity is mani- 
fest. The how and the why^ or a large 
part, if not the larger part, of our 
knowledge are not understood fully. 



198 MOBAL EVIL, 

The effort to be rid of the supernat- 
ural or the miraculous in religion is 
essentially skepticism or infidelity. 
Strip physical nature and the Bible of ; 
all marks, signs or evidences of the 
supernatural^ and faith in God and 
hope of life and happiness beyond the 
grave are impossible. Level the possi- 
bilities of attaining the blessedness of 
heaven down to what man can do to 
that end, and hope is gone. The best^ 
most learned, the smartest of men, do, 
in the presence of sickness and death, 
pale, tremble, fear and fail. No one 
has the power to banish disease and 
death, except He who gave life. He 
only who gave life in the beginning 
has the power to give eternal life. 
Therefore the supernatural, the super- 
human, or God-manifest^ being absent^ 
we are without God, and hence we are 
without the possibility of hope ol that 
which God only can give. Given, all 
evidence of the supernatural gone or 



MOBAL EVIL. 199 

absent, and the poet's lines must be 

amended to read : 

'' There is (no) God, the whole creation cries; 
Supremely great, superlatively wise,'' etc. 

The fact that we are, perhaps, not 
able in all cases to draw the line, ac- 
curately, between the natural and the 
supernatural, is not proof that the su- 
pernatural does not exist, nor that it is 
not cognizable and demonstrable. Let 
me cite the case of the five loaves and 
the two small fishes. Jesus takes these 
in his hands, looks to God as the source 
of all good things ; then he breaks and 
gives the people to eat. In a few min- 
utes, of those provisions, five thousand 
men, besides women and children, are 
abundantly fed, and of the fragments 
twelve baskets full are taken up. That 
is, eight or ten thousand people are fed 
to the full, of five loaves and two small 
fishes, which is a supernatural event — 
God was in it ; and then the fragments 
were greater in quantity than was all 



200 MOBAL EVIL, 



the food at the beginning, which is the 
miracle intensified. It is not easy to 
define the supernatural so that it ap- 
pears distinct from everything else, 
but it is not hard to see God in this 
event. The same is true in the case of 
the dead brought to life, the lame made 
to walk, the blind made to see, etc. 
These events did not take place by the 
power or cunning craftiness of men, nor 
by the operation of the so-called laws 
of nature. God was necessarily in these 
events ; and to show this is and was the 
purpose of their occurring. These mira- 
cles, events which demanded or required 
the conclusion that God was in them^ are 
God's certificates of verity. They are 
the sign-manual of the eternal. This 
being so, their necessity in God's reve- 
lations of himself, in his book of nature 
and in his book of grace, is evident. 
For otherwise, these productions could 
not be held as necessarily his. So 
long as they might 5(5 ascribed to other 



MOBAL EVIL. 201 



sources or parties it cannot be believed 
that God is, certainly, their author. 
The surpassing or transcending of all 
that man can do, or that natural law 
can accomplish, may reasonably be 
expected and will certainly be found in 
a world or in a book that is to show 
that God is. Or, as we find these evi- 
dences in our world and in our book 
we may infer, with certainty, that they 
are from God. 

The astronomer searches the heavens, 
on and on ; he finds at every step and 
turn the wonderful, the inexplicable, 
that '' none by searching can find out 
God, can find out the Almighty to per- 
fection." See Job 38 and 11: 7-10. 
Man is limited in his search, because 
lie cannot comprehend what, to him, is 
Incomprehensible. The geologist goes 
into the bowels of the earth, and at 
every step and on every hand he does 
and must logically exclaim : Surely 
the unknown and unknowable has 



202 MOBAL EVIL. 



been here. So lie would talk, if lie 
were a skeptic or an agnostic ; if he 
were a Christian he would say : Behold, 
God has been in this place. When one 
contemplates himself he finds the mys- 
terious, the incomprehensible, at every 
step. He realizes what the Psalmist 
did when he exclaimed, " T will give 
thanks unto thee ; for I am fearfully 
and wonderfully made. Wonderful are 
thy works, and that my soul knoweth 
^right well." 

The remarks of this section are made 
because, in the discussion t)f the sub- 
ject of "Moral Evil," we seem to have 
been face to face, often, very often^ 
with the inexplicable, the incompre- 
hensible, the miraculous. This fact, 
to the mind of the unthinking, and to 
one unskilled in thinking, has the effect 
of leaving him unsatisfied. To him, 
here and there, a statement or an argu- 
ment seems unsatisfactory, from the 
fact that at such points the subject 



MOBAL EVIL. 203 



appears to not be fully comprehended. 
But when it has come to be under- 
stood that one's works do and must 
carry in them or on them something of 
the qualities of the workman, it is not 
to be put to the discredit of a writer 
that he is not able fully to explain all 
the ways and works of the incompre- 
hensible God. 



lUi-/ 



«^>' 



